This time around, I decided to separate my Unnatural video according to the locations that it was taken. These are the locations in the following order:

1. My home in Deer Park with my dog, Walter
2. RMIT University
3. The tram line along Swanston Street
4. Flinders Street Station
5. Brunswick: a brunch called ‘Sweet Evelyn’, a bakery in Brunswick West, Clifton Park
6. My local park in Deer Park, Robert Bruce Reserve
7. The Shrine of Remembrance and the Arts Precinct

The reason for this creative difference between the Natural and the Unnatural video is because of the difference in the amount of time I noticed the unnatural – I gravitated more towards filming and noticing people, buildings, structure and pretty much anything that is man-made. This is because there is already an inherent unnatural aspect in me as a human. 

When structuring my video, I made sure to categorise according to the places I took whilst also alternating between moving objects (humans, animals, machines, vehicles) and inanimate objects such as buildings, playground sets, etc. This was done in order to differentiate the variety of unnatural around us and that it comes in all different shapes and sizes. Coming from a creator’s perspective, I know that there is structure among the video, however, if an outsider audience were to watch it, it would appear as unstructured and almost random – it would be almost hard to grasp the concept of the video and its meaning. If comparing it to any previous works throughout the course, the videos pacing is almost similar to Joris Iven’s work, Regen (Rain, 1929). A more modern example is from Sofia Marramá’s Ruhr, with the movement of the tree branches being the main form of change throughout the video for long periods of time. Both works from Iven and Marramà’s is comparable to most parts of my video except with a few personal alterations of my own.

Throughout this piece, you can see a lot of movement and unpredictability of what these objects might do – an example is a girl giving the finger at the time frame of 1:55, an action that I only found out recently when I was editing the video. As for movement, an example is the change of speed at the time frame of 1:42, when I increase the video’s speed. Through this approach, it is easier to see the environment around the unnatural object (me and my dog) and how nature moves in its own way. These movements include the tree branches and leaves getting swayed by the wind and my dog’s movement because of his active attention span. Therefore, movement and unpredictability go hand in hand with each other, especially in the element of being “unnatural”. After all, the meaning of unnatural (according to Google’s definition) is “contrary to the ordinary course of nature; abnormal”. Again, the movement and the unpredictability also relates to another important aspect of the video – colour. I am not talking about the existing colours of the unnatural but rather the artificial and edited colour filter over the whole video – Fuji Eterna 250D 2359 Preset from Premiere Pro. My reasoning behind using this is to enhance the aesthetic value but also give myself a different perspective on how to see the unnatural. I did not need to do this for the Natural video because it is supposed to be natural and unchanged (in my opinion) but in this video’s case, I decided to fabricate the raw perspective of the colour but not too artificial to the point where one would not be able to notice the original version from the edited version. Using different filters and colours helps me notice the unseen features of our world.

Recording, compiling and editing all assisted in my journey to see the unnatural characteristics of our world, especially when it came to seeing how the unnatural moves in certain environments, whether it would be surrounded with its own kind or against natural spaces. Using examples showcased throughout the semester has also definitely helped in the process of creating this video – the long pauses in one location were an inspiration into taking our time to see what usually cannot be seen or when someone does not have enough patience to see the unseen. Unlike the Natural video, this requires more attention to detail and patience which is one of the original practices of noticing – rather than making it user-friendly to the audience (and to myself too), this video forces you to see it, watch it and absorb the story/information from the video. Through this final work, it brings me back to the basics, what I have initially learned from the start of the semester, resulting in a simpler, final product. That is what noticing is about – patience, simplicity and effort.

Lyreca.