Spiral

I have edited some of the previous footage from the Movement film I made in Ikea. This is the spiralling ramp which the customer drives up into the car park. I have duplicated the footage, and included a sense of gravity to the footage, through speed of motion. As the camera winds further and further up through the space, it get harder and harder, and slower and slower, at the top, the camera is then released and gradually builds up speed as it falls. The idea is for this footage to play on continuous loop, to emphasise a continual spiralling motion, and the loss of orientation one can experience when going through such a motion. I think the success of this film lies in the effective connection between content, form and media in the notion of the loop from the spiral.

Note: The footage for this film was simply captured by placing a camera on the dashboard of the car as the car was driven up the spiralling ramp.

Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone

Graham Ellard & Stephen Johnstone have worked in collaboration since 1993. Their work lies between architecture and cinema and concerns the ways in which space is represented and shaped through projected image.

Motion path is a video installation, which was presented at the De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill on Sea. It is a visually experiential insight into the work of the modernist architect, Erich Mendelsohn and concerns how to approach a building cinematically. Ellard & Johnstone take the viewer on a fluid path through Mendelsohn's buildings, using the architecture to guide the motion of the camera. The natural sense of movement presents shifting perspectives, and a unfolding architectural objects as the viewer progresses through the spaces. The films were then presented on a series of small table-top screens within the gallery, their arrangement encouraged a navigational path through the space in order to view the artwork, and hence reflected the filming process.

Motion Path at the De La Warr Pavilion

Images from Ellard & Johnstone website

The description of this project on the Ellard & Johnstone website, gives an extremely fascinating and in depth overview of the project and the fluidity of Mendelsohn's buildings, setting the artists' work into context.

I have found this work extremely outstanding for its approach to the relationship between architecture and film. Particularly of relevance at this stage of my project due to the use of devices to film architectural spaces. Devices which truly interact with the architectural spaces and which are derived from the particularity of the architectural spaces in order to give an insight into the motion path of these spaces.

Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean is an English artist, whose films, photographs and installations involve reference to history, time and place, light quality and the film as the subject matter. The strengths of her artworks are in her ability to encompass the truth of the moment, the film as the medium and the receptivity of the individual.

Kodak (2006), is a looped film recording the production of her choice film for standard 16mm cameras within the last factory in Europe in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. Dean explains the background to this artwork in an interview at the Frith Street Gallery, published in the article Kultureflash Interview: Artworker of the Week: Tacita Dean:

‘I was trying to get hold of black and white film for my 16mm camera ... and ... I was told that Kodak had stopped producing it ... I found five rolls in New York and I decided on a whim to think about using it to film the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saône, at this point not knowing that they had just decided to stop all film production there. The idea of the film was to use its obsolete stock on itself. The point is that it’s a medium that’s just about to be exhausted.'

Tacita Dean - Kodak - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

The 44 minute film presents a narrative of film illustrating itself and witnessing its own termination. The film shows the mysterious spaces within the factory, where transparent sheets of film are manipulated through complex machines and rollers. The film shows close ups of the machine processes, whilst also illustrating the operators day. Although the film starts in black and white, colour becomes dominant through the film, which is abstracted by the close filming, and the glows necessary for the processing of the film.

Images from Kultureflash website

Kodak, portrays a strong connection and relationship between the medium of the filming device and the subject and space the film is recording.

Catherine Yass

Catherine Yass is an English Artist, most renowned for her photographs set in front of light boxes. She has a phenomenological concern into states of individual consciousness which often results in destabilizing results, whilst her experimentation with processing methods presents an intensified view of reality.

Since 2002, Yass has been increasingly making films along side her photographic projects. These films explore the psychological impression of architectural space. Descent is a film she made by lowering a camera by crane to the ground over a construction site, down the side of a high-rise office block in Canary Wharf, through thick fog. The resulting film was then screened in reverse, and displayed along side a number of upturned images. As a result of the camera being lowered through thick fog, the surrounding buildings are revealed in slow motion, abstracted into streaks of colour, where ascent is exchanged for descent and speed for disorientating slowness.

Still from Descent 2002, Image from Tate online

Descent, Ilfochrome transparency, lightbox, Image from Alison Jacques Gallery website

The following article in Frieze Magazine gives a particularly insightful description of Catherine Yass's work. Relating and comparing it to the 1960s, when film artists would make an aspect of their apparatus the subject, revealing their working process.

Yass's work is particularly of relevance for the use of a device to film and abstract environments. She subsequently went on to film Flight which was filmed from a remote control helicopter flying around the roof of Broadcasting House in London.

Brainstorming & Tutorial Discussion

Concerns

• Transience in today’s culture - Every day, the average human fluxes through a series of juxtaposing internal and external spaces which reveal and obscure themselves to us as we journey from one destination to another. In viewing spaces in a state of motion, we immerse ourselves in a continuous movement of shifting orientations and crossed viewpoints, where our perceptions of space change as we progress.
• Travel – gradual transition from one environment to another
• I am concerned with the participation of the viewer within spaces, whereby through experiencing spaces in a state of flux, the juxtaposition of movement and stillness results in activating and revealing the space.
• I am concerned with a visual interplay with the way we see space so that the viewer’s positioning has a direct effect on how space is seen. This relates to an interest in the ability to change and obscure a space’s visual identity and transform our attention to surrounding environments. Environments which appear to be moving, but in reality are not - Creating a visually dynamic environment.
• Physically kinesthetic form of design and modelling of space
• Architectural journey – Spatial interactive experience between body and space
• Trajectories – path of a moving object through space
• Architecture that involves an unfolding experience as the viewer moves through it – sequential experience - associated with the cinematic concept of architectural montage, artificially created continuous spaces.
• The virtual transient exploration and manipulation of space in cinema, in relation to the visual experiential sequencing of space in architecture and installation art.
• My inquiry concerns movement and its relation to spatial manipulation.
• How we visually comprehend space through movement and how we can design to enhance the average experience of moving through a space.

Discussion

This discussion was focussed around how to subsequently progress from the 'Movement Films'. Each of the films were filmed in a fairly unplanned and impulsive manner, subsequently they have many similarities and differences. It therefore seems logical to derive a way to conclude the films as a whole, in a planned sequence film. A film which (like all cinema) has the ability to deliberately move the viewer through a space in a particular way.

This could be done through designing a mechanical device that holds a camera and which allows me to film in a particular way:

(It therefore seems sensible to initially analyse the current films in depth in order to devise the device)

• As a means of controlling the camera movement (dollies)
• Moving in two directions, roller coaster mechanism
• Maybe the camera records the mechanism
• Where is the spatial manipulation done? Unedited film - could enable me to avoid editing by computer software
• Complex mechanisms
• Using the twist / spiral - which has been concurrent through a lot of my work - compound movements - more than in one direction
• The device as a process to the next step
• Looking for buildings which have twisting movement qualities - but also devise a mechanism which allows me to film other spaces
• How the movement might really start to engage the space
• What it reveals when it twists
• Film the device - relationship between the device and the image
• How I show the films - a mechanism/monitor that moves

The films may then generate a particular play of geometry which i develop in a sculptural / architectural way - draw films - translate that back. Draw mechanisms.

Joe King Lecture, University of Westminster

Yesterday I attended a lecture by Joe King, who is a tutor in the Department of Animation at the Royal College of Art. His work is highly relevant to my project and has been acknowledged both in the UK and abroad, for the way he uses film and photography to manipulate landscape and architectural environments. His recording and film processing devices range from lo-tech black and white film, to projection, to high-tech digital methods. Most relevant and mesmerising about his work is his ability to embed movement into environments which should not move. During the lecture he screened and discussed some of his films:

Metronome is a film made up of black and white stills photography of images such as tides, a jetty, trees and beach huts, which are brought to life. The film has a rhythmic scratchy soundtrack, derived from movements and actions which create sounds, and thus enhances the idea of movement within the film. The different speeds at which the stills are sequenced, and the use of repetition enhances the way these scenes are brought to life.

Mobius Strip concerns the potential of a space and the ability to make it come alive. In this case, the life of a particular bridge. The film footage and stills are flipped, stitched and manipulated to create optical illusions. The pedestrian use of this bridge is used to animate the bridge and breathe life into it. Close up sounds of printing presses and alike are juxtaposed with far away images of the bridge from different viewpoints. There is a similarity in this film with the 2nd of my movement films, below 2. Moving/Rotating camera to record a still setting, in the stitching together of footage to create manipulated environments.

Survey (view film) is a film set in South Wales, where great industrial structures sit amongst an immensely beautiful landscape. Places people would not choose to go, but would maybe just pass by when for example walking their dog. The film investigates the boarderline between movement and stillness. Using a successive sequence of still shots to construct an illusion of movement into a landscape where there is minimal. This issue of the intertwining of movement and stillness is one that I was dealing with in the introductory project.

Seachange (view film) is a film which joe worked on with Rosie Pedlow. The film was shot in Thorney Bay Caravan Park in South East Essex at the end of the season, just before the park was to be cleared in way of a new housing development, and therefore records the site on the brink of disappearance. The film is 5 minutes long which is the time it takes to walk from one end of the park to the other. The camera view pans along the rows of caravans, and is animated by the transience of human characters. It reveals a landscape dramatically revealed through light and time, so although the film is one continuous space, it is not linear in time.

Image from RCA website

Decode, Victoria & Albert Museum, visited 18 Jan 2010

Today I visited the Decode: Digital Design Sensations Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition shows the latest developments in digital and interactive design. Generative software, animation and other responsive technologies bring life to contemporary artworks. The exhibition involves three themes: Code shows how computer code has become a new design tool, Interactivity involves work that responds to the presence of the viewer and Network charts or reworks the traces we leave behind.

I found the following artworks particularly captivating:

Body Paint is an interactive artwork which involves using the movements of your body to paint a virtual canvas with an array of colours. This was a highly exciting and engaging piece of artwork, which created audiences within the gallery space.

Body Paint, Mehmet Akten, 2009

Exquisite Clock is a clock made up of images taken from real life contexts to represent numbers, the images are taken by members of the public and have been posted from all over the world. 'The project connects time, play and visual aesthetics'. The clock is constantly being updated by new images.

Exquisite Clock, Joao Wilbert, Fabrica, 2009

Image from Fabrica website

Digital Zoetrope plays with the theme of urban exploration and the different speeds at which we traverse the city, which has the effect of revealing the different layers of the city to us over time. The artwork consists of a cylinder which has fragmented typeface accelerating around it at different speeds. The type face merges together at certain speeds, revealing bands of words and letters over different time frames. I found this a particularly interesting way to deal with the idea of a traversing human through a city.

Digital Zoetrope, Troika, 2008

Image from Troika website

Videogrid consists of a screen with a grid of twenty-five individual squares. In front of the screen is a video camera which records a one second film of the viewer and plays the clip on loop in one of the squares. Subsequently the artwork is a collaborative, continually evolving and changing piece of work, which is left open and unfinished by the artist, in order for the viewer to play a part in it. The engagement of the viewer in this piece was fantastic within the gallery, people were drawn to it by the laughter and activity it evoked.

Videogrid, Ross Phillips, 2009

Weave Mirror involves a screen of motorized C-shaped elements which rotate, tracing the movements of the viewer. Subsequently a blurred smoky rustic image is produced of the character in front of the installation. The electronics and wiring of the artwork is left exposed on the back of the screen to show the complexity of the movement instilled in this piece.

Tube by Zilvinas Kempinas

Movement Films

During my tutorial discussion it was suggested to continue to make some films involving movement. Below is a selection of the films I have made.

1. Movement in a shopping mall

A shopping mall is a bounded environment which contains a number of micro-environments. I decided to record the movements within a shopping mall which is due to people moving between these micro-enviroments (individual shops, restaurants etc.) I have increased the speed of the film on the left to emphasise the constant intersecting movement components (people walking, escalators, stairs, the lift, the lights of the lift etc) which act as links within the space.

2. Moving/Rotating camera to record a still setting

I recorded the footage for this film through rotating a camera continuously along a surface and panning along the surface. I then duplicated and stitched the footage together emphasising the movement of the camera in the recording process. The film shows a view of a setting in a way we would not normally perceive it, creating abstract forms of the environment. The film seems to turn this three dimensional setting into a two dimensional abstract image sequence, focused on bands of layers created by the viewpoint.

3. Changing forms through movement

Having watched a number of the films of Charles & Ray Eames, I was particularly interested by 'Tops' and the simplicity of using a common object. Inspired by this, the first film in the sequence above shows how an object can change and obscure its visual identity through movement. This bauble appears very different during movement in comparison to when it is still. The second film was taken from the window of a train at sunset. What I found particularly interesting about this film was how the movement of the train interacted with the internal/external environment; so as the train moved the visual image of the external environment would be interspersed with reflections of the internal environment(the camera and activity behind this), governed by light and the immediate landscape. The final film in the sequence is a time-lapse film of the sky formation change, a natural form of movement. I thought that it was interesting to juxtapose this slow moving film with the two others and to have it there as a comparison to the skies in the second film.

4. Revealing/obscuring rotated screen

These films shows how the movement of a rotated screen can be used to reveal and conceal. Again making an internal/external comparison. The film to the left shows how the opening of a blind negates its purpose by revealing a reflection of the internal environment, instead of the external environment which is in fact there. The film on the left shows that by dimming the lights, the external dark exterior begins to be revealed. There is an element of suspense created by the simple opening of the blinds.

5. Stop-motion

Using stop-motion to make a physically still series of photographs appear to move through a sequence. The movement of the hand reveals and conceals a series of everyday objects.

6. Controlled paths of movement

Sometimes buildings can have controlled and intended paths of movement through them. Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York drives visitors directly up to the top of the building in a lift, in order for them to view the art on a spiralling descent. Le Corbusier coined the term promenade architectural, to emphasise an unfolding experience of architecture as the viewer moved through it. For this film I was thinking about how retail space design can control the movement of a customer through the space to encourage purchasing. Ikea is a prime example of this. On driving through the barrier, I was directed up the building to find a car parking space. I then had to climb the building along moving walkways to enter the building on the top floor. Arrows, a grey pathway, stairs and more moving walkways directed me and descended me through the entire shop, through every section, until I was plunged into a huge parts warehouse. I then passed through the checkouts, through the exit and then back up a moving walkway to find my car and drive back down the ramps to exit this controlled movement experience. This film records my movement through the shop, which took me a total of about 15 minutes (purely on a mission to record the sequence, it would take the average shopper an hour at least). This speeded up film emphases the obscurity of moving so far up the building to enter the shop, the immense distance travelled through the space and also the extensive number of products this retail space houses.

7. Forward/Reverse

This film involves one duplicated film playing forwards and in reverse, simultaneously. The location of the film is a pillar lined walkway in Covent Garden, a place of instigated directional movement. I decided to combine the film clips into a film which portrays imagery of a journey in both directions. Subsequently, a film of the current, past and the future all playing concurrently.

8. Beyond the walls imagery

Whilst walking around Covent Garden I came across this construction site boarding, which is being used to conceal the construction and regeneration process of a series of buildings. The building has a notation of revealing what is beyond the walls, and there is an ambulant nature in the arrangement of the graphics.

9. Sequence montage

This film is comprised from a sequence of stills. The idea was to record this space within the university college, where there is usually a great deal of movement along these crossing axis. I took the images at the end of the day when there were few students around. I also recorded the space by taking images through gradually rotating the camera, whilst advancing/retreating into the space. The resulting film produced was about recording this space at its stillest part of the day, but referencing back to its usual dynamic character during working hours.