Integrated Media: Film Essay
This Korsacow piece entitled ‘Hands’ was quite an interesting film to interact with. Whilst entering the film, a sense of tranquillity was evoked from the first slide, whereby the movement of the title, ‘Hands’, moves along with slow acoustic guitar music and flickers almost like a candle. This immediately set the mood for the piece to be calming and almost ‘Zen’.
After watching the ‘Hands’ letters flicker, I soon discovered the eleven squares show different images of hands in black and white below. These images were audiovisual as when your cursor swiped on each image a video would play. These small squared images lead to different snu’s (hyperlinked videos) when you clicked on them, and in these links is where the explorative sense of Korsacow was portrayed really nicely. After clicking onto an image on the first slide, you are then directed to 4 larger Images of Hands that each play an individual clip depicting a different use, story and visual composition. Each clip relates to one another with varieties of hands in different environments and situations.
The sounds within the clips are diegetic to which when swiped over or clicked plays a corresponding soundscape. The main acoustic guitar soundtrack is played softer in the background adding a complex layer then therefore intertwining the tranquillity evoked from the beginning slide into the whole piece. The ‘hands’ videos are of a high quality and are all black and white until clicked on; they then turn to colour. I quite enjoyed interacting with this film, as it was quite unique in the way of portraying a form of narrative. I find it beautiful because although each clip is disconnected in some way, they are all relatable to one another as they are all faceless and therefore anonymous clips. This leaves the creation of differing identities for the hands up to audience interpretation.
‘Hands’ uses a geometric simple interface that suits the raw shapes of the hands. I feel like the intricacies of hands as moving shapes balances with the geometric layout of the interface creating a simple coherency. There is a black and white theme throughout but once you click on a clip from the bottom – it comes to life in colour and highlights the realism of the clip.
The first slide is a simple template that is easy to navigate. None of the clips are moving apart from the flickering letters until the cursor skims over the thumbnail. There is no overriding ‘bigger’ narrative that all of the clips follow, rather an overall concept of each clip being a new narrative. I think that is the beauty of this piece – that each clip takes you on its own journey, in quite an abstract and experimental way.
The creators of this piece really utilized the technique of being ‘simple but effective’, as the opening moving title is so evocative yet so simple due to its accompanying acoustic soundtrack and simple black background. The frantic flickering title accompanied by the tranquil soundtrack whilst the introduction of the images is occurring not only adds movement that draws attention from the viewers, but also adds an alluring sense to the beginning of the piece begging for you as a viewer to put it to life.
This piece would be really amazing as an instillation in a gallery as the simplicity of it allows an audience to really engage with its content and not feel confronted by it. Essentially you as a viewer are only observing the narrative of human hands and therefore as a human you can relate to each individual clip. Different hand movements and gestures trigger different ideas of what story is taking place outside the frame. For example the clip whereby a hand is on a knee- This clip triggered my thought process to imagine if the hand and the knee belong to the same human, and if not who does the hand belong to? Is the hand on the knee just friendly affection, or is it a gesture of flirtation? As hands are a significant part in human interaction they are a perfect subject to observe as an audience as your imagination runs wild!
Once you click on one of the 11 clips below the title, the next slide appears- this time only a screen with 4 thumbnails. The image clicked from the previous slide is now in colour. This creates an asymmetric configuration where the viewers’ eye is drawn to the left (where the coloured clip is). Each clip shows different hands doing different things accompanied with diegetic sounds. The diegetic sounds being accompanied simultaneously to each clip was a meticulous and purposeful creative decision as combined with the acoustic over riding soundtrack creates an atmospheric soundscape.
I think the creator of this K film understands humans’ natural tendency to enjoy voyeurism. Observing hands and trying to use every gesture as a piece of information to discover “the truth/ the narrative/the identity” behind the hands’ facade is riveting and this creator has thrived off the curiosity of the human imagination. We live in a voyeuristic society where as humans we are attracted to the idea of following the life of another, and thus we are drawn to voyeuristic art.
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