This weeks lecture was on the two artist Peter Tscherkassky and Bill Morrison. I believe this week has been the most important for me in the development of my work. As I am employing a similar frame of thought when using stock/archival footage. And I had already seen Outer Space by Tscherkassky, having seen it around the time I started on this venture into my personal style. Unfortunately I did forget the name of the piece and Tscherkassky. Both artists work is heavily involved with the idea of Materiality. The concept of Materiality is about the physicality of objects and how we can interpret it. Well that’s how I am interpreting the concept, I am going to dedicate a post to it in the next few weeks.

Viewing both Morrison’s and Tscherskassky’s websites are very minimalist in design. This contrasts highly in respect to the work they produce; which is often erratic and grimy. Tscherkassky’s website in particular feels very ancient, almost like the format hasn’t been updated in twenty years. Though on further reflection this sort of makes sense, i doubt two individuals who base all their work within the film care much for the digital space. besides the digitization of their work of course. I like the Morrison has a news page on his website, it allows us to see what he has been up to recently. The accolades he’s received and other content related to him. I like Tscherkasskys pre-Y2K vibe with his website, down to the pop-out windows for some sections. It’s a very niche aesthetic you don’t see much, definitely makes the experience more memorable.

I’m currently doing research on what I’ve dubbed ‘Recycle Artist’, I think Bill Morrison fits neatly into this definition, so I am going to also dedicate a post to him, maybe more. His work is extremely fascinating to me.

The theme I want to investigate more closely into is Gothic Science fiction and Urban Gothic. The influences I have been taking into consideration all deal with an industrialized (post-industrialized as well) society. They are both sub-genres of Gothic Fiction, which deals with the horrors man faces in the world around him, and within himself. To be honest I have never really ventured much into what Gothic Horror is, but have been an avid fan of work set in the genre. Modern interpretations of the genre include Alien, Event Horizon, and Se7en. I am zoning in specifically on the two sub-genres mentioned above specifically because I feel they are most relevant to what I am intending to embark on with my next short film. The imagery I create is reflective of industrialized society destroying the world around it and then venturing off into the stars into the unknown. From what I already understand, the genre is very nihilistic in its’ conveyance of messages. Often depicting a very bleak world without hope, rotted in the emotions of its’ characters.

What I will do to further understand the genre is watch films that represent the genre, and breakdown how they achieve this. audio-visually and through narrative. I will also be doing research on various authors, and why they thought in the manner they do, how the world around them at the time may have influenced the view of humanity they possessed at the conception of their work. Hopefully after doing this I can garner a better understanding of the sub-textual messages that run through modern Gothic, and how to portray them more accurately.

Simultaneously researching artists who recycle to make their work, and works that depict society drenched in nihilism should give me the knowledge to create something much greater than I did in Screen Production 1. And elevate my work from this point onward to a new height artistically.

I have been stewing for the past few days on how I can improve as an artist over the second half of this semester. I believe I have made great progression in my transition from a biological to a methodical creation process. I think the next step I must take is to discover and see how other people create art from re-purposing old forgotten and discarded things. I think there is something very poetic about taking something old and reinventing it into something completely other to what it was originally created for. I am not just going to limit myself to just audiovisual content creators and artists. I am going to take this quest for improvement and influence into a more broad spectrum of art. I mentioned previously that there is an element I feel that was missing from Screen Project 1. That element is influence. Influence specifically in my way of thinking when I create these videos. I have been taking the process where I try to emulate a style or genre, without considering how I am thinking about this. What I mean by this is that I may be trying to create something completely new, but my thought process is still based in the avenue of an editor. To truly elevate my work and push into a new frontier personally as an artist, I need to not only think about what I am trying to create, But the thought process I am using while creating.

I am going to try and discover artists, both known and unknown (relatively), and analyse what they are creating and how they might be thinking when they create. Including the way they recycle. Seeing and absorbing art from different fields may even inspire me to think of something I may have never considered before.

Nothing is made in a vacuum, the World is closed system.

I am currently halfway through this semester, and therefor halfway through this project. I began the semester extremely motivated and excited to do work, but the motivation started to fatigue a bit. This isn’t because of a lack of passion or excitement, but a persistent routine. I’ve struggled for years with time management, but it is something I am steadily and progressively improving. I think when I get too locked into a bad routine it becomes difficult to break out of, which has become something I slip into at points in Lock-down. I am glad that this week is the mid semester break. I am going to use this week as a way to start and maintain good habits. The first of which being near daily blog posts, or at the least four per week. After reflecting on Screen project one I feel like I did create something that is representative of the much larger vision I have. My biggest downfall was relying too heavily on that bad “organic” video creation process. Now that I understand with much greater depth how to achieve certain visuals, I am going to story bard and plan out the next short film. Along with this I am going to write a Short story, that way I have a base narrative at the least to structure my work around. I think a longer runtime with more visuals will be good. Another flaw I feel is in the video is the transition and blending of videos, some of them, more so the last third, felt really forced together. I want the video to flow like water visually in its’ transitions.

If I can start these habits during this week I am sure to create something immensely better than Screen Project 1. I posted a link to the video on my social media, and got a very positive response from my peers, so I at least know that I am headed in the right direction in some respects. I mentioned in my log post on the Screen Project that there is an unknown element I feel is missing, that I am not too sure about. I have also been reflecting on that. I think it might need a feminine element (I mean my blog is called ‘Ardour to Anima). I just feel that there is a masculine presence in the video, maybe a visual or auditory Feminine vibe is missing. I am still contemplating over this, hopefully I will discover what it is in the coming weeks.

Surprisingly my first experience watching Lynch was Dune. Dune is often regarded as a terrible adaptation, but I really enjoyed it. There was something about the direction and feel of Dune that I really enjoyed. A few years after I watched all three seasons of Twin Peaks. I was captivated, especially so by The Return. The way Lynch directs and composes his films is so unique in the Hollywood Sphere of influence. We covered him in the Lecture this week and I became even more obsessed with him as a person. He’s an enigma. I’ve always looked up to other directors as a point i should try and strive for, but I now believe that Lynch is the spot I want to get to. He isn’t concerned with fame, or money. He’s merely an artist who wants to create.

I like that his films are apologetically different. Watching the Handbag commercial in the lecture I found myself getting greatly invested into it, I don’t think if it was directed by anyone else that this would have been the case. After the session I watched more interviews with him from the early 90s, and some from now, and he still feels authentic. I also explored more of his YouTube channel. It is becoming more evident that he just enjoys creating. He does daily weather reports, where he looks out the window next to him and just describes what he sees, then wishes everyone a nice day. Not for profit, but just because he can. This is what I want out of my career, I just want to make stuff for people to see and feel. I want to tell stories. Which I believe David also feels, I am sure I’ll find an interview clip with him saying this for the next post.

I’m going to do more research into his creative process, and his directing process. I think I’ll have a binge of his films this week too, that way I can understand him more as a person. Twin Peaks was fantastic, as I am sure the rest of his works are.

For the screen project I wanted to try and juxtapose clips together, drawing them out, rather than rapidly editing them together with a lot of kinetic motion. I think I did this fairly well, but should have created more footage, a mistake on my part. I do believe the intent is there though. With the next video i feel i can build upon this and elevate the themes I’m trying to portray. My biggest hurdle at the moment is the human element. Most of the ideas I have are missing a human representation. I am hoping the restrictions end before the final video is due. I want to try and create my own footage for the next project by projecting clips onto people, and integrating these clips into the footage. My goal with this video was to portray space and expansiveness, as well as hints at something primordial. I used the strobe effect to blend some clips together and had a high contrast for all the clips. I incorporated a compilation of Hubble Deep field pictures, edited of course, to try and bring some more authenticity into the video.

Overall I think there is much to improve on, in the juxtaposition of shots, the pacing of the clips, the mixing between audio, and the expansiveness of the soundscape, and the missing human element. I think the main component here is to mix footage I have taken and footage I have acquired. This will give more focus to any narrative I want to create through juxtapositions, and the connotations that follow them. Though I can’t help but believe there is something else I am forgetting that’s making me feel it is incomplete. I think there is another integral part that is missing, I’m going to do some more research into Horror and Science Fiction as Genres to try and discover this missing element.

https://vimeo.com/452574342

I discovered a few years ago that I was most productive when listening to music. This was a time when i was still studying math and science based subjects in high school. My teachers always said that it wan’t a good idea to work and prepare for exams and tests this way because I wouldn’t be able to work as efficiently during them. This was a half truth on their part in my opinion. At the back end of my year twelve studies I decided that science wasn’t for me and I want to focus on film, as it is my primary passion. Over the years I realised that listening to music wasn’t focusing my attention, but opening me up creatively. Sort acting as a stimulant for creation. Sound is ultimately the most important part of film. The cinematography can be bad, yet not ruin a film. But if the sound design and mix of a film is bad it will ruin it. With this project I am drawing heavily from the music scenes I listen to.  Music is an auditory experience, but it expands out so vastly from there it would be negligible to not attribute visual styles to it. While making the videos I have been listening to various styles of music that interest me including hip hop, industrial, punk, grunge, and experimental.

I am going to base my focus specifically on Punk as an influence. Most of the music I listen to can be attributed to various sub-genres of punk, or punk inspired at least.  Even a hip hop band i listen to can be considered as a modern evolutionary ancestor of punk. Punk is a very anti-establishment genre at its’ roots, which can be comparable to my project. As I am try to create something that goes against the idea of ‘aspiring perfection’ in the creation of film. I am intentionally going against the norm to explore what can be done with recycled footage. Punk is also a style used to critique culture, which i think I can incorporate into my work. A band that does heavily Influence me is Death Grips (probably because they’re my favourite band). They’re pretty hard to define genre wise because their work varies so heavily from album to album. They’re punk rock and industrial hip hop. The music videos they create also employ similar techniques to the ones I employ, though they film all of the content in use. Their sound and visual style is almost describable as a state of entropic flux, forever coasting on the line of order and chaos.