photo album

While thinking of ways to make my idea more easily understandable, I came across a photo album chronicling to early days of my parents' relationship. I then decided that a photo album would be a good way of contextualising a narrative series of images , doctored in the same way as I intended for my hippocampus idea, only now would be a tale of more sustained memory loss under conditions like Alzheimer's or dementia.

I took a series of family photo style images though only a few were successful so I used some older photos to show a younger subject.

After a series of failed attempts at photoshopping photo album style portraits, I decided to physically alter old photo album photos of my father and me as a baby. I wanted to illustrate blocks of memory being lost so literally cut out blocks of the image and had them filtering away . I tested a few different ways of altering the image further, with bubbling by holding a lighter underneath etc . I settled on scraping away parts of the face with a blade .

I added words from the point of view of the per) suffering from memory loss ,questioning who the occupants of the photo are. To further understanding of the context of the photos.

I think my project is somewhat lacking in something , it didn't quite articulate the ideas as eeffectively as. i hoped.

To improve it I should have spent more time in the photography stage making the images look more polished, I had s small window to stage a photo with my real time dad and the staging of the photo of a much younger couple( hiding the face to hide the fact its not a younger dad).  I would have liked to have implimented the cutting out in a slicker manner also.

time art

In this piece I'm moving about in time so that my time art piece looks like it was done by a child?

Colour shift

the colour shift of the "stars" is linked to the observed shift in the colour spectrum of stars as they move about the universe, relative to the observer.

The stars display a doppler effect when they move, Red Shift- stars are moving away, Blue - stars are moving closer.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_shift

Sounds

Sounds used will include-

Room tone- Recorded in the Hackney exhibiton space on campus

Walla/Rhubarb - low Db, high bass- to simulate the sound travelling through the boxes as one is in the exhibition space.

Footsteps- on wooden exhibition floor- Recorded on Hackney floor, large room so a lot of reverb, record close to the walls to ensure reverb is picked up and also to simulate walking through the box maze.

Footsteps in the snow -Boots in the road ice salt box -crunching + heavy boot step sound-heavy bass to make it distinct
                                  -  squeaking of snow steps- cornstarch wrapped in a towel being twisted.

Winds- Wailing, high speed winds, turn the mic adjacent to the wind to minimize distortion ( not entirely effective due to the capricious nature of the wind

Whisper- layered whispers (canon)- mess about with stereo side, treble , bass, reverb etc to give the impression of the origin of the whispers coming from all around the point of auditon.

Breathing- laboured breaths / chattering teeth/ chattering breaths? - simulate breathing in a cold enviroment.

Sound Synopsis?

The sound scape will be engineered to create an immersive experience that puts the listener into the shoes of an exhibition goer. The visitor will be walking through the exhibit and taken in by the lack of colour, coldness and emptiness is transported, in their imagination, to a snowy mountain top where they trudge their way into a cave/tomb where they are accosted by the oppressive whispering of the dead, before snapping back to reality and the exhibit.

basically a lara croft game?

Further Sound Ideas

The idea of packing away her mothers belongings coupled with the strong themes of death that run throughout Whitread's works makes me think of the dead in a tomb. this is synonymous with the Raiders of the Lost Ark where objects are filed away in a warehouse. The idea of a tomb is further compounded by my initial feelings of the exhibit evoking the feeling of walking through an old library space.

except messier/less fancy

The colour and feel of the piece makes me think of snow and cold weather, this idea is shared with one reviewer who said "it feels more like an icy maze" (Andrew Dickson, The Gaurdian, 25 Oct 2005)

Combining these ideas i will create a snowy/mountaintop tomb soundscape in an imaginary way.

Rachel Whiteread research

Rachel Whiteread, the first women to be awarded the Turner Prize , is a contemporary artist who mainly works with sculpture. Many of her works take the form of casts.

Her best know works include House (1993) , Ghost (1990) and Embankment (2005-2006), however House is probably her best know as it was the work she was awarded the turner prize for.

House was an expansion on her previous work Ghost and caused a lot of controversy in the local council when they reached the decision to demolish it on the same day Whiteread recieved the Turner. (a somewhat ironic decision)

Her works have often been regarded as being evocative of Death and Absence as most of her works are of things that are not there.

Embankment (2005-2006)

Embankment was a exhibition held in the tate modern, it consisted of 14000-odd translucent white polyethylene boxes , which were casts of the inside of different cardboard boxes. the boxes were stacked in a variety of ways, some in ordered rectangular stacks close to the floor and others in mountainous peaks that stretched up above the rest.

 Whiteread has cited both the end scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark ( 1981, Dir. Spielberg ) and Citizen Kane ( 1941, Dir. Welles) as visual inspirations. The death of her mother and the subsequent packing of all her belongings into cardboard boxes was a large influence as well.

test shots time art

had a bunch of test videos of turbulent river flow, that don't want to transfer from my phone.

Instead here are a number of stills of the flows that aren't as useful as I won't be able to track particles along as effectively as a video.

Photography - memories, The Hippocampus

The Hippocampus is important in the formation of new memories about experienced events (autobiographical memory) & novel events (memories that can be explicitly verbalised, these include memory for facts in addition to episodic memory)

If the Hippocampus was taken out of your brain right now, you would be stuck in time and memories of new experiences which would rapidly fade away. The hippocampus functions to create a seamless story of self.

'A photo is information about past light that we can perceive in present light'

Photography- Memories

REFERENCE BACK by Philip Larkin

That was a pretty one, I heard you call
From the unsatisfactory hall
To the unsatisfactory room where I
Played record after record, idly,
Wasting my time at home, that you
Looked so much forward to.

Oliver’s Riverside Blues, it was. And now
I shall, I suppose, always remember how
The flock of notes those antique negroes blew
Out of Chicago air into
A huge remembering pre-electric horn
The year after I was born
Three decades later made this sudden bridge
From your unsatisfactory age
To my unsatisfactory prime.

Truly, though our element is time,
We are not suited to the long perspectives
Open at each instant of our lives.
They link us to our losses: worse,
They show us what we have as it once was,
Blindingly undiminished, just as though
By acting differently, we could have kept it so.

The last paragraph is particularly poignant and can be linked to photography, and how many people would view photographs sadly, particularly family photos where many of the people may be dead. 

'They link us to our losses; worse , They show us what we have as it once was.' 

Photographs are essentially a still memory, but more than that; they evoke emotions of a time lost never to truly be relived except in the mostly unsatisfactory tomes of our memory.

I take a rather macabre view on memories, preferring instead to live in the present. Although memories can be a reminder of what shaped us and made us who we are today, they can also be shackles, fettering us to the past.

Despite this view, having no photographs of your life at all would be worse than the emotion one can feel looking at the past.

Humans tend to alter our own memories, we like the smudge the past, diminishing the bad so they become less painful and somehow the good times take on a golden light. We focus so heavily on those times sometimes that they become immaculate and somewhat better than they actually were. While this can still happen with photographs, as a photo is a reminder, a starting point from which we fill in the gaps with our memory; if your memory is skewed, so might the photo take on a different meaning.

However a photo can act as an anchoring point, a reminder of how things actually were , and sometimes rid us of the illusions of our own altered memories.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/reality-check/2013/dec/10/does-taking-photographs-ruin-your-memory

Photography - reasearch

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/05/08/that-tree-a-photo-a-day-by-mark-hirsch/6021/

A year in the life of a tree.

touches on my seasonal photo idea. one photo taken every day over the course of the year, each photo is a different composition, some photos aren't as good as others but the ones that are good are really nice.

http://eirikso.com/2011/01/04/one-year-in-one-image/

A DSLR set up in a forest in oslo, taking a photo every half hour , then using a script source from the internet, the photographer then choose 4880 images from during the day, the photographer took a slice of each image in progression (in chronological order from january to december) and fused them into one montage.

Sound- Initial thoughts

Words that spring to mind:

Box, Cold, Void, Maze, Stacks, Avalanche, Pile, Snow, Sand, Particles, Lost, Sugar, Growth

Box- Obviously there's boxes but the people also look 'boxed in' as they walk around.

Cold- lack of colour leads to a cold feel, this combines with the high vantage point to compound a feeling of cold detachment.

Void- much as above it's void of colour and for me void of any overt emotion.

Maze- a warren of pathways, penned in by high walls/ hedges of boxes.

Stack- Dual meaning, boxes are stacked, but also the connotations of library stacks, library archives etc. get the feeling of a library for some reason but fused with the new and clean.

Avalanche- Looks like a neat avalanche of snow, the snow/colour is synonymous and much like a pile of snow its made up of many individual pieces/flakes.

Patrticles/ sand/ snow/ sugar - Lots of individual pieces making up the whole


Desertscape/ Snowscape- these atmos soundscapes are quite similar - Cicada sound (desert only), Wailing winds, birds of prey calls (hawk/or vulture in the desert,eagles etc in the snow scape), blizzard sounds, crunching snow/sand.

Snowscape mixed with library/exhibition sound ? - ambient room tone,

Character Bios

Character Bios

          

Name: Death

Age: God knows, no literally only God would know

Physical Description: Typically seen as a skeleton in a giant robe, also seen as being in a suit. Wears something pale to show horseman. 

Quirks: Monotone voice

Personality strengths/weaknesses: Prudence, pride, humble, powerful, calm

Skills: Immense power, deadly touch

Goals: To end the lives of people who are destined to die then and there

Name: Famine

Age: Too old for you love

Physical Description: Well fed, healthy person who doesn't appear to age. Wears casual clothing to blend and something black to show horsemen. 

Quirks: The joy of killing people by spreading famine across the land

Personality strengths/weaknesses: Resilience, some sort of fairness, smug bastard, greed, brutality, twisted

Skills: Being able to affect prices and crops meaning people starve

Goals: To cause starvation to those who may or may not deserve it

Name: War

Age: Way too old and should die already

Physical Description: Built up body to show strength, looks like someone who could take charge. Wears something red to represent horseman. 

Quirks: Interested in war, has quite a demanding voice, believes all humans are 'filth'

Personality strengths/weaknesses: Assertiveness, anger, arrogance, bias, deceitfulness, mercilessness

Skills: Being able to turn people against each other and start wars with just a snap of his fingers

Goal: To make all 'filthy' people turn against each other and cause death throughout

Name: Pestilence

Age: Older than life itself

Physical Description: Appearance of illness and death. Plagued with diseases. Wearing something white to show horseman

Quirks: Has every disease wrapped up in the palm of their hand

Personality strengths/weaknesses: Self-awareness, perceptiveness, knowledge, manipulative, rashness, twisted 

Skills: The ability to infect anyone with anything at anytime

Goals: To kill with the use of diseases

Reflections Production Pack (sort of)

Synopsis

The four horsemen have been unleashed on the Earth to be the harbingers of the Apocalypse, but at first they are too weak to inhabit their true forms. Thus meaning possess the bodies of a mortal to feed off the souls of humans, only until they are strong enough to truly be free. This short film shows how each horseman would act in the same scenario, possessing the body of one of two friends and turning on said friend to strengthen their corrupted souls. Each scene will run for 1-3 minutes of improvised dialogue and action, telling the tale in reverse chronological order with differing approaches to the same outcome.

Treatment

Scene 1 – Famine

•          The body of the un-possessed friend lies in a pool of regurgitated food.
•          The eyes of the friend bulge as they vomit up their stomach content until there’s nothing left and they die (effectively of starvation).
•          The friend backs away from Famine as it approaches, hand out stretched to use his/her power of the friend.
•          The friend looks on as Famine explains his/her true nature
•          The friend questions Famine on his odd behavior
•          The friend and Famine are walking through the Wood/Park area
•          Famine meets up with the friend
•          The Host touches a occult symbol on a tree and becomes possessed by Famine

Scene 2 – Pestilence

•          The body of the friend lies dead already surrounded by flies, a maggot crawls on their face
•          The friend scratches at their skin and can be heard describing how they’re rotting away/feel ill/diseased
•          The friend backs away from Pestilence as it approaches him hand outstretched to curse them
•          The friend listens as Pestilence explains who he is
•          The friend questions pestilence’s behavior
•          The friend and pestilence walk through the wood/park area
•         Pestilence meets up with the friend
•          The Host touches a occult symbol on a tree and becomes possessed by Pestilence

Scene 3 – War

•           Parts of the friends body is on the floor covered in blood
•          The friend can be heard screaming as blood/gore sprays across the grass
•          The friend runs from War
•          The friend listens as war explains who he is and his intention to kill the friend
•          The friend apprehensively questions War’s violent behavior/attitude
•          The walk through the park area
•          They meet in the park
•          The Host touches a occult symbol on a tree and becomes possessed by War

Scene 4 – Death

•          The body of the friend lays dead, eyes staring vacantly with the body already extremely pale
•          Death touches the friend who instantly goes limp and drops death
•          Death approaches the friend one finger extended as the friend backs away
•          The friend listens as Death coldly imparts who he is
•          The friend questions Death’s demeanor/behavior
•          The friend and Death walk through the park/wood
•          They meet in the park
•          The Host touches a occult symbol on a tree and becomes possessed by Death

         Camera Style

      Shot types – will be primarily MS + CU/ECU, the shot plan is impossible to produce as the camera movements will be improvised/semi blocked on the day in the style of irreversible. This is basically unsteady/hectic at first to be synonymous with the action of the shots and to impart feelings of unease and desperation to the viewer. And with a smoother but creepier style which will hopefully impress a sense of dread/apprehension to the viewer towards the end (chronological beginning) of the scenes.

       Props

•         Canned vegetable soup/vomit
•          Fake blood
•          Pale foundation makeup
•          Fake prosthetics  

      The scene will run looped on a split-screen, with only one scenes audio playing at a time. Which scene is playing will become obvious as the action matches the sound and should draw the viewer’s attention. The split-screen allows the viewer to see the convergence/divergence of the scenes and to easily recognize the similarities and differences in the way each character/actor improvises and reacts in the scenario.

   

      Lighting

      Natural light will be used in the park, with colour correction afterwards to achieve the desired look.

Time Art Treatment

I shall be using a star particle device (CC Particle world) to recreate a cyclic model of the universe over time. I will be aiming to show the balance of this model in a visual style, demonstrating how all energy is finite and how based off this fact it can't be linear (in my view).

The screens on the left and right will be vertically tapered by black bars to represent to relatively small size and confined nature of our still expanding (in the right side ,retracting) universe. These two screens will effectively show the same thing but inverted, as the model for an expanding universe and one for one undergoing the big crunch are almost identical. The two side screens will show a thin stream of small stars that snake down the page, getting larger and more numerous as they flow to/and from the centre screen.

The middle screen will show the stars oscillating in size around a small centre point (call it a singularity) as they begin to move/behave more chaotically (this is synonymous with the behaviour of physics as time as we know it begins to teeter). As the stars move further along their path , they will begin to move more turbulently , the movement of the stars will match the test pics/videos that i took of turbulent flow as many points along the river flowing through farnham and also the manner in which ink diffuses into water (in the ink bath test i did). The turbulent flow will represent how space and time (and spacetime) break down as the universe reaches its turning point, when expansion is no longer possible and the universe begins to reverse and contract.


(insert diagrams here)

The middle screen will flow around the centre point in a similar, if more chaotic, fashion to the Chinese symbol for Ying and Yang (which denotes the balance in all nature, in this case the balance of all energy and the expansion/contraction of this model of the universe) as will the two other screens denote the balance.

Film Stills, Stylistic Impression/ Vignette examples

Short Impressionistic shots that give a strong, vigourously stylistic impression of a character, setting or scenario

Film Idea Development

Going off my previous post about my film idea and my tutorial with Leah, I have decided to alter my idea to have the same scenario playing out but with different actors inhabiting the role of the protagonist.

I want to fuse the two approaches of the improvisational directors i previously mentioned, working individually with the actors before hand to develop their character based off of a common backstory/bio (allowing the actors a certain amount of freedom in the way in which they interpret this to give variety in the scenes. Also developing the character with the actor in Leigh's style will allow for the actor to give a more honest/authentic performance (i want to avoid the typical drama class improvised bullshit)) and giving them a basic idea of where i want the scene to go.

How it gets there will be loosely discussed and implemented with a certain level of freedom, it will also be based on how the actors interpret the information they're given. I will step in to give direction where necessary to ensure the improvisation doesn't diverge too much from the desired outcome.

I will attempt to keep to a minimum the number of actors the protagonist will interact with to limit the potential for divergence from the base concept and desired outcome. These actors will need to be briefed and given character development/bios that are more extensive even than the protagonist as they need to be able to adjust their reaction to the improvisation of the main character in such a way as to steer the protagonist towards the desired outcome.

Idea Development, Improvisation Directors

Mike Leigh 

Leigh's process of making film is uniquely unconventional, rather than writing a script initially (or working off someone else's script) he starts his process with a basic premise, which he develops by working one-to-one with each actor. He improvises dialogue and character traits with the actor (usually basing the characters off someone the actors know for a more authentic and personal performance) and researches "anything and everything that will fill out the authenticity of the character" over a period of sometimes months before writing a shooting script, a bare scenario. This is followed by more 'real rehersal' on location, on the shoot, before the script is finalised.

"I'll set up an improvisation..I'll analyse and discuss it...we'll do another, and it'll...refine and refine..until the actions and dialogue are fully integrated. Then we shoot it"  - Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh

This improvisational process appeals to me and my idea as i would prefer taking a more methodical/scientific approach to my work, an approach that is semi-synonymous with my research and content.

Some of Leigh's more noteworthy works are Abigail's Party (1977) , An improvisational play for theatre and television (which was voted no.11 in the BFI's Poll of the 100 greatest British television programmes), and Secret's and Lies (1996) which was awarded the Palme D'or at Cannes (Another film with largely improvised dialogue, with Leigh aiding the character development)

John Cassavetes

Cassavetes was a pioneer for Improvisational and Indie film in American cinema.

The manner in which Cassavetes employed improvisation is often misunderstood, the large majority of his films being fully scripted. While dialogue and actions were scripted, delivery was not.

Cassavetes' Directing style was vastly different from the director run sets of Hollywood's big budget productions, often employing his friends as cast and crew, filming over long periods of time at the weekends or when funding was available.

"I think you have to define what improvisation does - not what it is. Improvisation to me means that there is a characteristic spontaneity in the work which makes it appear to have not been planned. I write a very tight script, and from there on in I allow the actors to interpret it the way they wish. But once they choose their way, then I'm extremely disciplined and they must also be extremely disciplined about their own interpretations. There's a difference between ad-libbing and improvising and a difference between not knowing what to do and just saying something. I believe in improvising on the basis of the written word, and not on undisciplined creativity" -John Cassavetes on improvisation

Film Idea

My idea for the film is based heavily on my research into vignettes. I would like to fuse the Psychological premise for vignettes with that of the Literary Vignette. The use of the moving image medium for the vignette will allow a better insight into a persons mindset by placing them into the situation itself and recording their reaction.

The film would be made up of a series of scenes in which the protagonist is placed into a scenario with minimal information about the scene, but provided with a back story and bio for their character and will be asked to improvise a reaction to the events of the scene. This will happen several times, but each time the characters in the scene will act differently or cause a series of different events to see how the protagonist reacts, thus giving an insight into the protagonist's psyche.

Alternatively, the scenario and people in the scenario will act the same each time, with the protagonist being provided with several different back stories to see how different characters react to the same scenario. (or the protagonist will be played by different people each time to give a wider, more accurate range of reactions)

I was thinking the narrative form of each scene could play out in reverse chronological order, for example, showing the consequences of the protagonists reaction first, and then the reaction itself, then the catalyst for the reaction, and finally the protagonists entrance. (Not particularly relevant but a challenging editing style and a homage to the unconventional narrative forms I have researched)

The scenes will be short and concise( as a nod to Slacker and the Literary Vignette) with minimal dialogue. Information will be provided through significant symbolic shots, close up reaction shots, and motifs.

Vignettes

Vignettes in Literature (As demonstrated in Slacker (Dir. Linklater, 1991) ) are a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one brief moment to give a trenchant (vigorous in expression or style) impression about a character, idea, setting or object. (A blog could be argued to demonstrate a form of vignettes)

However upon looking into Vignettes more i became enthralled by the idea of vignettes in Psychology and Sociology. Vignettes in Psychological/Sociological experiments present a hypothetical situation to which research participants respond , thereby revealing their perceptions, values, social norms or impressions of an event.

These forms of vignettes are used extensively to demonstrate/teach management and teaching styles ( for example )

Vignettes allow for 'controlled studies of mental processes'. Vignettes are used for processes that are impossible or highly difficult to study through more traditional/classic experiements.

However the process of someone reading a scenario and then responding has a lot of drawbacks/pitfalls as the person is not truly experiencing the scenario, hence why i struck upon the idea of using them in film to provide a much more genuine reaction.

Slacker/ Non Linear Vignettes

While investigating different narrative forms I came across Richard Linklater's 1991 film Slacker.

Slacker has a unique narrative form, which is seemingly plot less, following a series of various bohemian/burnt out characters in a single day. The film never focuses on one character for more than a few minutes. Slacker gives a unique insight into the lives of these kinds of people in the college town of Austin, Texas and almost acts as a cautionary tale at times.

Upon investigating the film more, i saw that the films narrative structure had several times been described as as series of Non Linear Vignettes. Vignette being a term i had not encountered before i decided to investigate further.

Reflections ; Unconventional Narrative Form; Reverse Narrative

The first narrative structure that came to mind when reading the brief was the reverse narrative, this form is very interesting to me and is one i have only seen done succesfully on a handful of occasions.

The most well known/ commercially successful film to use this narrative form is undoubtedly Momento (Dir. Nolan, 2000). Momento is split into two different narrative sequences, the first; a series of black and white scenes that are shown in chronological order and the second; a series of scenes in colour shown in reverse order. The sequences represent the different forms of the protagonists memory (or lack there of) and converge at the end to show one common, complete narrative.

Another film that uses the reverse narrative form (and in my eyes uses it most thoroughly and to the best effect) is Irreversible (Dir, Noe. 2002). The film shows the events of a night out in Paris in reverse order (even going so far as to have the end credits roll UP the screen at the beginning of the film) revealing shocking plot points as the film progresses (an excellent film but not for the weak stomached >.<)

Another film worth mentioning that uses this form is 5x2 (Dir. Ozon, 2004) which splits its narrative form into five episodes in reverse chronology.

Reflections: Photography Instillation Idea

While watching the short documentary piece by Paul Sermon about the use of the space in the coal mine showers (A Body Of Water), I began to think of how I might use an environment to display the photography project.

I actually decided upon how i would like to display my work before landing on a concept, in fact the idea for the display led to my idea for the concept.

While watching A Body of Water and the Echo piece, i liked the idea of the viewer moving about and experiencing the piece , feeling that a more immersive experience would stay with the viewer longer and make a larger impact (a sentiment similarly expressed in the YoHo piece). As such i decided that my photos would be in the centre of the space (whatever that might be) and displayed in a manner which would allow the viewer to move about or to stay in one spot and still be able to view the whole thing. Too this end I thought to display my five photos on the faces of a cube that is suspended in the middle of the room on a chain or rope that spins the cube around.

From the above idea and the research i had been doing for Image Factory, I decided that each of the our vertical faces would display an image that in some way denotes each of the four seasons and the bottom face that of death. I felt this was fitting for the square that moves in a circle, as i felt that it represented the way that we humans attempt to make everything clear cut and definable by manageable arbitrary integers, like the four seasons , which in reality aren't clear cut and run into each other (this is denoted by the turning of the cube, which also represents the constant progression/changing of the season). While the image seperate from these four, underneath, will be one of death as that is the only escape from the turning of the seasons (on Earth that is).

However upon thinking on the doc's i began to like the idea of projection more and more, thinking that if the images where in fact projected out from the faces of the cube into the exhibition space, it would make for a more immersive experience, and also would be synonymous with the way in which humans force our perception of the universe onto others through communal understanding. We don't truly know whether the person sitting next to us is seeing the same thing as us, yes they would be seeing the same visual light being emitted, but there is no way of knowing for sure if their brain perceives it the same way you do.

Our understanding of the physical universe being what it is we know that in reality we are 99.9 percent empty space, being made up of electrons and the forces of the universe holding them together, and the human brain instinctively fills in the gaps. So how do i know that my green is your green.

Upon thinking further on the idea, i felt that a hellish image would be better for the bottom face than one of purely death, the two concepts are synonymous in my catholic/jesuit upbringing/force feeding. also the idea that hell is below us works well with the image being projected onto the floor. This projection will be in stark comparison to those on the outer faces, those i decided would be photo montages, as this is a more interesting way of showing all the facets of a season rather than like just falling leaves for autumn etc. I also thought that in addition to the hellish image i would include some coloured LED lights underneath that will add emphasis to the image and also help to create a sense of vertigo and unease as the viewer looks at the swirling image.

I would also ideally like to include sound in the exhibition, creating a general atmos track for each image that will all play together creating a cacophony of sound.

Image Factory: Time relative to oneself in a crowd

(bear with me on this one)

have you ever watched people walking down a busy metropolitan street and noticed that people all walk at different speeds indifferent to whomever's in there way. This made me think that time in a crowd is relative to every individual, these individuals get annoyed by people moving a different speeds (speeds that relative to themselves is too slow)

I'm not quite sure what i'm trying to achieve by that statement (rinne mé é ar meisce) but thinking on it reminded me of several scenes from the show House of Lies (the one with don cheadle) in which the main character steps out of digetic time to break the fourth wall and address the audience. When he does this the scene around him freezes and he begins to move about the foreground making with the funny. I thought this effect would be perfect to highlight how someone who likes to take their time might feel when trapped in a bustling crowded street.

http://vimeo.com/32028017 (this video shows how some of the interesting VFX are done on the show)

however the effect i'm interested in is more similar to this:

the making of:

these effects would be amazing if i was able to reproduce them , however I question if i have the time/skill to complete it effectively.

Image Factory: Time as a cycle (AE)

essentially my idea for this panel is to create a looped model for the expansion of the universe using the particle effects

Image Factory: Time as a River panel (AE)

The idea I had for this panel is based heavily off the idea of time as a river.

The triptych panel would show either an actual river or one that is animated, with the flows highlighted using the particle effect. It would show a large clump of particles enter the screen from one side, moving slowly at first, this clump of particles would follow the flow of the river at first but then would enter turbulent flows, and begin to move faster and as the flow becomes more turbulent the clump will break apart/down and disperse into nothing, representing the end of time as we know it. the process would then repeat itself.

I would need to get to grips with moving the camera relative to the image (as we learnt in the animating the still volcano tutorial) so the viewer will follow the flow of particles. And if possible to break up the monotomy of this continuous loop by coding the particles to appear as different colours, and or, to change the motion of the turbulent flows each time.

Image Factory: Death Clock? Panel?

Upon various Google searches about time and death I came across several websites with the concept of a death clock. These are websites which upon entering some details about yourself (age, BMI etc.) will predict when you will die.

From visiting these sites an mulling them over I thought of an idea for a panel in my triptych:

An hourglass sandwiched between two silhouetted faces like :

except not back to the future :P

  the hourglass will have grains of sand (representing time obviously) passing through it with the un-silhouetted eyes of the faces watching the grains, once the bottom is nearly full the hourglass flips and the process repeats.

This is somewhat a commentary on my own feelings on time and death, I feel that in some ways time was created by those afraid of their own demise(much like the way in which we create gods/an afterlife to appease their own fears of dying).

The concept of a death clock , the wanting to know when you will die raises something of a moral dilemma: is it better to live a life ignorant of when the end will come(an arguably happier life) or one where you spend the rest of your life in fear of your upcoming death and spend the rest of your life attempting to prevent the inevitable. (this is of course based of the hypothetical that clocks work accurately)

Image Factory: Time as a cycle

Time moving in cycles or rather our physical world moving in cycles of time is another interesting concept, one which is evident in almost any living thing or otherwise (although it is more clear to us in that which lives)

Living things ( Animals, Fauna etc.) have very evident cycles of life. The shortest and most obvious/abundant to us humans is the life cycle of trees, how in the spring their leaves are 'born', in the summer the leaves 'live', in the autumn they begin to 'fail/become ill' , and in the winter they 'die', all before being 'reborn' in the spring thus completing the cycle of time and the cycle continues.

Time/life cycles vary with different cyclic model, the longest cyclic model being the cyclic model of the universe proposed by Einstein , in which he stated the universe is in a constant state of flux. First a Big Bang followed by an exponential  expansion before the gravitational pull of mass begins to cause the universe to begin shrinking before undergoing a Big Crunch and bouncing back with another Bang. The cycle is obvious here:

Big Bang- Birth
Expansion of the universe- Growth
Retraction of the universe- Old age/Illness
Big Crunch-Death
Big Bang-Rebirth

Image Factory: Time as a river

Thinking of time as a river is an interesting concept to me as there are many characteristics of time that are synonymous with that of a river. For example time as far as we are aware of it moves in one continuous direction, and yes while a river may not take the most direct route to the sea there is still a final destination in mind. (Although we have no knowledge of an end to time so this model doesn't fully fit)

Another example would be that a river is effected by many different currents/flows (turbulent, streamlined etc.) much the same way that relative movement effects time (the faster one moves, the closer they get to the speed of light, the more space time begins to break down) I feel this is synonymous with the turbulent flow of a river.

The flow is constantly accelerating as the flow is continuously changing direction, and as such (without any outward interference, such as the river bank in this example) the flow exponentially begins to become more chaotic/begins to break down more.

Image Factory: The End of Time

The End of Time By Peter Mettler

This is an extremely interesting documentary concerning time, In this doc Mettler travels the world investigating our perceptions of time.

"Working at the limits of what can easily be expressed Filmmaker Peter Mettler takes on the elusive subject of time and once again turns his camera to filming the unfilmable" - http://www.theendoftimemovie.com/

During this documentary Mettler travels the world investigating various time related subjects, such as the particle accelerator in Switzerland where they are attempting to probe regions of time we cannot see. To Hawaii to investigate the physical representation of time in the lava flows. He also visits Detroit to document the fall to ruin of its city and the efforts to rebuild. He finishes his journey in India with Hindu funeral rites where he tackles the idea of rebirth

Mettler has not only forged an extremely thought provoking documentary but one that fully immerses you with the extraordinary visuals captured by cinematographers Camille Budin, Nick de Pencier and Mettler himself. I would defiantly recommend it as a watch, not just as it relates to the unit but also as being one of the most visually stunning and overlooked films of 2013.

Image factory: Time

Time is the curse of the self aware.

Time as we humans know it has so little significance to 'unaware' animals like dogs or cats, Sure domesticated animals pick up learned behaviors/habituation to certain times , feeding etc. from the regularity with which their owners act. Other than that an animal knows to sleep when its dark, awake when it's light and to eat when it's hungry.

Human's self awareness and natural curiosity caused early civilizations to begin to investigate natural phenomena  such as the tide, changes in weather (Seasons) and the movement of the stars.

As civilizations developed, as did our understanding of time. Time begun to play a much more important role in society with the introduction of calendars and crude clocks developed from observations of nature( sundials, water clocks etc.).

I think the point i'm attempting to make from this is that due to the awareness of time, human life appears to have become much more hectic (everything has a deadline nowadays). While some might argue that returning to classic time keeping methods (i.e the grumbling of your stomach) might benefit humankind in the long run it would also cripple our world as we know it, so as of now unless someone can create a better system we're STUCK with Persian minuets and seconds. 

someone should have warned early man

IT'S A TRAP!