Roam and Return is a choose-your-own adventure story that seeks to invite the viewer into moments spent in intimate spaces. Take a journey through familiar environments, by moving through this interactive web installation. This work intends to explore the potential of intimate spaces to foster attachment, and enable the growth of experience, connection and identity within humans.
“These spaces we call our own; to which we return,
In our final media work and practice, I feel we were fairly successful in achieving what we set out to do. In my first assignment I explored humans and their entanglement with mobile technology in today’s society, and how this can bring us closer together, or isolate us from our environments. Working as part of a group this time, the themes of ‘environment’ and human entanglements were something that all of us had in common in our initial media work. I wanted to carry over some ideas about devices and their entanglement with place to further build on my initial ideas. As a result, we decided to examine the spaces we inhabit and are most familiar with in our everyday lives, which for each of us were our bedrooms.
We found that bedrooms are highly personal spaces entangled with memory and technology, which connects us with others. They are also spaces of learning and self reflection. By examining how our surroundings influence our actions, we aimed to illustrate how this shapes our identity, thoughts and experiences, in order to connect our project to broader themes of place. A idea that helped us to explore this was an quote from Rene Magritte from Simon Schama’s book Landscape and Memory. Magritte argues that we see the world “as being outside ourselves even though it is only a mental representation of what we experience on the inside”, and that “it is culture, convention, and cognition that makes [this] design” (pg.12). This is a concept we wanted to expand on, as cultural and personal factors often influence human relationships with environments.
The scrollable page format afforded us with the ability to create work with a level of texture, and allowed us to experiment with sound, visuals and text to tell a story. With this format we had to keep in mind how a person would move through our page by scrolling and pausing. We decided to use the Wix website builder to produce our media work, as this suited our needs for an interactive design. The visuals we used such as the header image and looping videos intended to reinforce this relationship humans have with their surroundings. Similarly, the hovering feature was something that we added to the final work to afford a level of interactivity to the user. The use of text in the form of small paragraphs allowed us to give an insight into places and their entanglement with humans. Sound was also something we took into consideration, as clicking a button to play a soundtrack helped us to create a cosy atmosphere for the viewer.
While making the work a question that arose for our group was how we could create a consistent look and feel throughout the page. We did this by each recording our individual footage with similar equipment (a DSLR camera) which would also ensure its technical quality and give us more control over composition. I also had the opportunity to carry over some of the forms of the media I produced in my first work such as looping visuals similar to a GIF format. By grouping visually and conceptually similar elements together, we intended to create a seamless experience on the page. The single page exercise in class helped us think about the relationships we hoped to create between different things on the page, keeping proximity, alignment and overall composition in mind.
There are some issues with the final work that could be overcome in the next assignment, as well as areas for potential development. In terms of sound, incorporating spoken word elements instead of music could allow for a clearer emphasis on storytelling. Alternatively, having different music tracks could allow for a more personalised experience. In terms of design, I feel some aspects could have been improved such as including a more dynamic background, as some parts of the page feel empty at times. An issue that we came across after filming was that our rooms sometimes visually clash with each other. While this serves to show the contrast between different spaces, I think that having more of a focus on consistent editing and colour grading of the footage could overcome this problem. Despite this, I have learnt a significant amount about page design and was able to overcome the technical issues I experienced while recording in my first assignment, such as framing certain elements. In our future work, some potential developments include having more of a focus on storytelling through quotes, adding more levels of interactivity, and using sound and space to further immerse the viewer.
Bibliography-
Schama, S, 1996, Landscape and memory. London, HarperCollins Publishers, pp. 3-19.
Manzo, L.C., 2003, Beyond house and haven: Toward a revisioning of emotional relationships with places. Journal of environmental psychology, 23(1), pp.47-61.
Bennett, J, 2010, The Agency of Assemblages. In Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, London: Duke University Press, pp. 20–38.
In my final media works, I feel I was fairly successful in achieving what I set out to do. I intended to create work with a level of texture and compose each in an interesting way in order to highlight the entanglements a smartphone has. Each format (visuals and audio) allowed me to experiment with editing to create something new. Mobile technology has become a part of the meshwork of our relationships and unwritten rules about communication in today’s society has changed the way we relate to each other. This was something I wanted to focus on in terms of demonstrating our entanglement with technology in today’s society.
Something that I feel was successful in the final visual work was the colour scheme as the black background let me create contrast with the lighter coloured objects, and the simple layout made it easier to focus on certain things in the frame such as the smartphone. I decided on incorporating GIFs into my work, as the affordances of video and gifs are that they can tell a story through images, and the gif format is engaging and short. I also think that this format works well in regards to storytelling. Their repetitive nature is similar to the instantaneous messages we receive on our phones. This is definitely something I would like to explore in future work that explores entanglement.
Aspects that weren’t as successful include some technical issues I had with using stop motion to create GIFs: in some frames, the lighting changed which interrupted the flow of the animation. I also had some framing issues as a result of moving each object individually a number of times. To avoid these problems in the future I will ensure all objects are in the frame and positioned correctly. Additionally, using text overlays helped me to more clearly illustrate the ideas I wanted to explore to the viewer. However, I feel the frame gets overcrowded or the text is too fast at times, which might make the viewer feel overwhelmed. Alternatively, I could have used a voiceover to avoid this and to create more of a focus on the images.
In my audio work, something that worked was the use of field recording to create a sense of space. An idea I wanted to explore was how I could convey information about today’s society and its entanglement with technology through sound. I am satisfied with the technical quality of the audio, as I used a zoom mic to capture sound in separate locations (a busy footpath, a staircase, a pedestrian crossing). Combining these field recordings with the sounds of a smartphone allowed me to create the atmosphere of an urban environment, and in addition, highlight the disconnectedness of a person on their phone with their physical environment.
One of the affordances of the audio format is that revealing or omitting certain sounds can elicit certain emotional responses from the listener. By using transitions in Audition, I diminished the volume of the environment whenever the person was using their phone in order to evoke a response of isolation in the listener. However, this is something I feel I could improve upon in my future work by creating a more coherent storyline and flow within the piece. By playing around with the timing of the clips to improve its pacing, I feel it could have been less boring at times or evoked a stronger emotional response. My proposed audio work included excerpts from voicemails to engage the listener’s imagination, however, I found this did not complement the field recordings I collected as well which could be an idea I reapproach in the future.
A concept I would like to develop in future work that explores entanglement are those entanglements that do not revolve around humans, such as animals and nature as I feel this would be interesting to look into. In addition, I would like to further explore how I can use interactive and visual forms of media making.
The concept of ‘entanglement’ in media storytelling is quite complex, and so I have given a lot of thought about what it means to be entangled in the world in these first few weeks. The implications of the word ‘tangle’ when used to describe the world we live in are that it has a messy and unique quality. Therefore to familiarise myself with this concept I have read the Tim Ingold reading, ‘Rethinking the animate, re-animating thought’. A quote I really like from this reading is that things exist in a field “not of interconnected points but of interwoven lines; not a network but a meshwork” (p.70). I feel that this encompasses the idea that as things in our world thread paths of their own, they are constantly relating to each other, creating a weave of existence. I found this interesting as it is quite an abstract perspective. It highlights the texture of the world we inhabit, and that beings do not live their lives in a static manner. Another idea I quite liked was that “things are their relations” (p.70), which reinforces that the relations things form give the things themselves meaning. In my media work, I would like to highlight the changing nature of human relationships in particular. One way I would like to do this is by examining the role that technology (mobile phones in particular) have become a part of this meshwork in our lives.
While I am developing my ideas, I also want to think about how I can craft a story to represent our entanglement with technology in an interesting way. I feel that the example video that was shown in class, Dead stuff: The secret ingredient in our food chain by John C. Moore on detritus does this well. The leaf texture of the animation gave meaning to the narration, which informs the viewer of food chains in our ecosystem. Similarly, the small media work we created in pairs used visuals and audio to highlight the entanglements of an everyday object (a disposable coffee cup). By using images of its life cycle- from its purchase to its disposal- and atmospheric sounds of eating, talking and drinking I could illustrate its context and purpose within the world. We found that our media work could be related to larger environmental concerns surrounding waste as it was a non-recyclable object. People often choose to use disposable cups because of their functionality and convenience in our lives, which made me reconsider the things I use in my own life such as plastic bags which are harmful to the environment.
In one of my small media works, I would like to do something similar to inquire about the new connections that exist with mobile technology. I intend on experimenting with some form of video collage or stop motion to create a unique composition. I would also like to delve into how this affects our personal and social relationships with others in today’s society.
Peter Cusack explores the idea that “all sound (even unspoken) conveys information about places and events that are different yet complementary to visual images and language”. In my audio work, I would like to incorporate this idea of field recording as ‘sonic journalism’. I found it interesting how sound can reveal things like the time of day in a location or have a textural quality. While doing some field recording of my own in the city I noticed the timbre of voices of a busy open space, compared to the calm and warm atmosphere of a cafe. In my audio work, I would like to highlight the entanglement between a person on their mobile phone and their disconnectedness with the other people in this busy space.
In addition, the idea of subtly revealing certain sound sources at a certain pace to elicit a specific emotion (fear, excitement) is interesting. The clip from Voyage There And Back was particularly engaging as it instilled a sense of isolation in the listener. I think that it would be unique to create a soundscape using voicemails and excerpts from text messages to engage the listener’s imagination and create an isolating feeling.
References:
Ingold, T, 2011 ‘Rethinking the animate, reanimating thought’, Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description, Routledge, London, New York: 67-75 (69-71)
Cusack, P. (2013). Field Recording as Sonic Journalism. In A. Carlyle & C. Lane (Eds.), On Listening (pp. 25–29). Devon: Uniformbooks.
