The exhibition for our studio, Deconstructing Fed Square, was a great way to end the semester by celebrating our work on the outdoor façade of Fed Square. Having seen everyone’s work, two standouts for me from our studio were Anything but Square by Abby, Amy G and Simmy, and Woven Stories by Auley, Ruby, and Harrison. Both groups took a poetic approach to their work, which we delved into throughout the semester by learning and experimenting with capturing public place in a poetic and observational way. These two works highlight the broadness of the poetic mode of production, as they both use their own distinctive filmmaking style, while still successfully honing into Fed Square’s objectives.
Anything but Square, as the name suggests, explored Fed Square’s objective ‘Anything but Square’ through gorgeous scrapbook-like imagery, alongside a fun song which matched the pacing of the piece beautifully. The film captured different parts of Melbourne/Naarm through coffee culture, musicians, street art, the beach, floristry, suburban streets, and people, overlaying the subjects of different shots in a scrapbook-like way with other vibrant shots. During the semester, we explored what it means to make poetic work in a public space, and the group addressed this with their own signature style, highlighting the importance of people, art, and culture throughout Melbourne/Naarm.
Woven Stories, the group’s collection of short films, all successfully engaged with Fed Square’s objective ‘Community Engagement’, showing how different people use the square as a meeting place in an observational and poetic way. The two out of three short films that were screened took different approaches to this objective – the first following the story of two friends meeting up for a drink, and the second taking a larger communal approach in how different people from different walks of life use the square.
I received their first film Friendship as being quite observational, following the characters’ story of trying to spot each other in a swarm of people. In exploring the observational mode of filmmaking during this semester, we touched on the importance of noticing, and Friendship notices the all too familiar experience of trying to find a friend, observing the routes they take on the way. It’s light-hearted, witty, and offers a fun approach to the ‘Community Engagement’ objective.
Their second piece Community felt quite ambient, with an ambient piece of music that accompanied a well-paced selection of shots, elevating the rhythm of the film. Whether it be a protest or yoga group, the group gave meaning to this film by highlighting the importance of community in Fed Square. The meaning isn’t overt though, and can be received differently, as learnt during semester in the poetic mode of production. The group take on this idea successfully in a poetic way, offering an experience rather than a narrative.
Speculative Sound Design
I chose to visit Speculative Sound Design’s exhibition, as I don’t typically listen to audio pieces and wanted to see (or hear) how the studio explored this medium. I walked in at different parts of each audio piece and was able to treat each of them as experiences – some I engaged with more than others. Two pieces I engaged with the most were The Angelic Reconstruction of the Catholic Cult by Mark, Saskia, Amy and Josh, and Reclamation by Justin, Wanshu and Louis.
The Angelic Reconstruction of the Catholic Cult was hauntingly beautiful, walking the listener through a market and church in 1500s Rome. They used a variety of voices and ambient sounds of a market and church to mimic this era in their speculative world, with a motif of the seraphim angel throughout. It would have been interesting to walk into the piece not knowing the name of the piece or what they wanted to explore in their world, as they achieved the feeling of being seated in a church beautifully with echoing footsteps and church bells – which differed in distance depending on where the listener is situated in the world. I was struck by the culmination of sounds throughout the piece and they successfully created a speculative world set in the 1500s.
Reclamation took more of a commentary on capitalism, and imagines a speculative world where nature eventually takes over. This piece seems to take a narrative structure, following a voice-of-God narration as it weaves through their imagined different stages of the earth, but still allows for a unique audio experience by stepping in at any given time. The culmination of sounds of the earth were striking and well put together, and they successfully created a speculative world where nature reclaims the planet in the absence of capitalism.