Tag Archives: art

99% invisible

It’s been a while.

Since I have visited this place…or listened to Radiolab…

Discovered a very interesting podcast in the latest episode on Radiolab: 99% Invisible

At first, I thought it was something to do with Dark Matter, something invisible and undetectable to us which scientists say makes up something like 94% of the universe!

Then, I thought maybe it was a metaphor for how much we can’t see: as visible light only makes up a few percentage of the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

This is what I soon discovered: “99% Invisible is a tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world.”

Although this podcast mainly focuses on design, architecture and cities, the concept of its name still sparked ideas for me.

As I am working on a project with a friend to understand the different influences on climate change, and why it is still so easily denied, I think the concept of 99% invisible is a suitable metaphor to describe not only the easily forgotten yet significant impact we have on our planet as a species, but also our blindness to the true insignificance of our selves, race, gender, countries, species, planet and even our solar system on a cosmic scale.

The phrase highlights the wonderful duality of human perspective: that we ought to be humble of our place in the universe, yet never underestimate the impacts we can have in our environment.

Research: Movement

Following the first scene I posted that initiated this research, here are some of the self conducted investigations of movement:

  1. Dancing Pedestrians – This exercise was originally aimed to film the movement of the escalator.  It was one of the most uninteresting footage I shot when I first reviewed it on my phone. However, when transferred to the computer, the file was registered upside down. It suddenly became an amazing study of our physical movement from an unfamiliar perspective. We are so used to watching each step fall downward toward the earth below that watching this in any other direction seem almost like floating or defying gravity.
  2. Streetlights – an attempt to capture the movement and pacing of a car through its relation to its surroundings. The frequency of the streetlights provide a rhythmic indication of the car’s speed. The effects are also seen in the unstable handheld gestures of the camera as it is subjected to the physical vibrations of the cars movement.
  3. Sun Dance 1 & Sun Dance 2 – after 5 minutes of wandering around with a camera in my room to some music, I found something to focus on. The music, my movement, and the visual that was captured in the camera merged into one performance that felt like it had a purpose. The result was mesmerizing and meditative. One of the videos is played backwards. It surprised me how the music sounded just as melodic and emotional when played backwards and also provided another level of interpretation to the piece.
  4. Cat project scene – Over the week I also assisted on a project outside of class. The project was a story from a cat’s perspective. Although I was volunteering to act and provide location, I also participated behind scenes in working out how the ‘cat’ was suppose to move around. It was a unique exercise in trying to understand, mimic and capture its liveliness without showing any part of the cat itself. I chose to include this shot because it also captured an unexpected technique I may use in the future. When the camera is inside the box, it captured the pin hole image of the exterior world inside as I moved around. This was a unique way of capturing movement that we accidentally discovered.

As I am investigating movement in these exercises, some of the videos have been muted so that the viewer can focus on the visual movements in frame.

These exercises may be inspiring and creative endeavors, however, they are no more useful than poetry. I hope that in my next lot of investigations, more methodological process will be discovered.