The side project, as previously mentioned, follows the backbone and core themes of the main project whilst also branching off down its own path. It is the same but also the opposite of the main project in many ways.
This side project is mostly focusing on my dads reaction to the landscape and his illness, looking at the way he remembers and hopes/dreams of interacting with them again as well as his perspective on how this project has made him reflect on his experiences with the landscape. The aesthetics of this project are ultimately the other side of the coin to the mains projects. Where the main is a projection of my dad over the landscape, this is a projection of the landscape over my dad. Where the main is positive black and white, this is negative colour. Where the main is a physical installation piece, this is a video with editing that is integral to the reception of the work that could not be done in an in-person setting. Where the main has a quiet and infrequent soundscape of the home in the background, this has a dominating soundscape of ambient outdoors with voice clips from my father interwoven. The constant between the two, much like a constant in my dads life, is the sofa and lounge wall it is projected on to.
A big aim of this audio/visual combination was to create a disorienting yet hypnotic showcase. I feel that the colour negative lends itself to this immensely. Especially when coupled with the multiple clips of overlayed footage, dancing in and out of focus whilst panning around the scene at different speeds and angles. Sometimes you can see what you think is a clear image of a recognisable shape within it all, but then it is obscured or your eye is distracted from it by something else and your focus is taken elsewhere as you try and make sense of all the sensory information bombarding you at once, but I didn’t want it to feel over done. That’s why there are lulls in the audio and the visuals, slowing it down or quieting the noise before ramping it back up again, sometimes in sync with each other and sometimes not.
This was my first experience with creating a soundscape in the way that I did, and my first real experience with either of the audio or visual editing software I had used. The audio clips were taken from a walk me and my dad went on (details about the location and how much this place meant to my dad found earlier in this book, as well as how him coming wasn’t the original plan but he felt like he couldn’t not. He ended up severely hurting himself from the walk and has now been rushed up the waiting list for an operation on his foot mostly due to this injury. That just goes to show how deeply he wants to interact with landscapes again and how much he will push himself to even walk round a relatively flat woodland path to experience it again.) and I experimented with the features the software afforded me in much the same way I have previously experimented with techniques in the darkroom. It felt like it was all coming from the same place for me. I employed the use of repetition and distortion to create a disorienting and dreamlike atmosphere backing up the visuals (and the visuals backing up the sounds). Using some specific sound clips in certain orders and time stamps of the audio file to tell a story that was clear to me, but also open enough to interpretation by any viewers. I feel this is most evident toward the end where my father is heard to be talking about ‘everything was dead’ and ‘everything dies under them’ before I put in some more clips that were used right at the very beginning of the file and then ending with ‘did you see it?’ ‘I can still see it.’ This (along with distorted audio) was to represent the disfragmentation of some of his memories, the dying clips, before finishing with the fact he can still see the places he so longs to go to, asking if the audience can see it too (for both of these projects I have wanted audience interaction to play into it, in the main project this is by means of allowing the audience to walk between the projector and the wall, to be able to touch the room and see a shadow of their own figure in the work, in this project is it less tangible and more in a way my dad speaking rhetorically to them by means of this end clip.)
The distortion of the audio and the visuals combined with the final presentation of the video I chose definitely give off a very disorienting and hypnotic atmosphere, which is what I was aiming for so I feel I fulfilled my intentions there. Before settling on the final zoom presentation that I did, I had three different ways of presenting this film, each creating different emphases on different portions of the footage/concept, and each creating their own unique atmosphere. The final choice I went for the one I felt was the most surreal. I paid close attention to the positioning of the projected screen as well as the shadow cast by my dad. The projected screen very slightly wraps around the corner of the room, adding a nod to the reality and representing again that no matter how much my dad goes into himself, he cannot escape the reality of the domestic and that he never will be in these landscapes again sometimes not even in thought (the same reasoning for the projection touching the sofa cushions, as well as it then also covering a larger area of my dad and his chest - where his heart is). The shadow wasn’t only incidental to the work, I had carefully chosen projector and camera and dad position to put the shadow in the place I wanted it to be. The video starts in this shadow cast by my dad onto the wall, just above his head. It slowly starts to pull back as the audio kicks in. For the first section of this video you are met with a series of abstract shapes and changing colours before the video reveals enough of itself that you begin to recognise part of my dads head. This abstract beginning leads into the abstract projection and lends itself to the disorienting and hypnotic nature of the audio/visual experience I am exhibiting. Once it is realised that this video comes from just above the head of my dad, this puts across the idea of this being a very internalised theme to it. This is what’s going on inside my dad, in his mind, and it comes in interlinked but clear stages. This is about the man and the landscape, but the reality of the room is never escapable and is sandwiched in with everything else, just like how even in his thoughts and dreams my dad can never truly escape reality due to the constant reminder of the pain he is in. As the video begins to zoom out beyond the frame of the footage, getting further and further out until there is nothing but black left, it gives the viewer time to reflect on what they have seen. To think about the work and start to formulate their own interpretations and go over the story of the audio and the illustration the projection and film effects offer with it, before suddenly they are plunged right back into it for another round. This sudden start again where it was not expected adds to the disorientation, and concept of the work greatly. It provokes the thought of where this work is coming from and its intentions even further than the first instance of viewing. This continuous loop of one instance coming from the previous and leading into the next only serves to emphasise the defragmented memories and the pain - mental because of my dads inability to do these things anymore and physical because he is reminded of the reason for his inability - that this reflection of his has caused. It adds a surreal and dreamlike aspect to it, linking back to the atmosphere of my project from last semester and tying everything together into one big package of my dad and the landscape.
Overall, this project I feel reaches the intentions I set for it. It is a showcase of the internal thoughts and hopes/dreams of my dad in regards to the landscape and how those memories aren’t always perfect playbacks, whilst also effecting the viewer in a disorienting and hypnotic way by utilising multiple sensory inputs/outputs. It provokes thought and analysis of the concept in the viewer which is something I have wanted to create since the very beginning of this concept in semester 1.
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