Entangled media project can be found here:

https://s3720526.wixsite.com/entangmedia2

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.