The first thing I decided to do once I had considered the critical feedback from Elizabeth, Wendy, Amy and Cormack was to completely overhaul my entire idea. I decided to keep the topic of food production but the method of communication needed to be revised. My intention was to illustrate the developments in farming techniques from pre-industrial to modern era through a series of heavily edited photographic collages. However, when I began the process of actually constructing the images in Photoshop I found that a significant deficit in my skills with the software was letting me down. I was unhappy with the quality of the work I was producing and the medium wasn’t effectively communicating the message. I made the decision to construct a soundscape using Adobe Audition. Audio is much more familiar territory for me, and although I wasn’t able to achieve one of my self-set objectives of pushing my skills into more experimental and visually creative modes, I was able to achieve a much higher quality outcome.
Research for my topic began with engaging with content online, which depicts the conditions of current farming practises. I then looked into progressive farming and food production models that are aiming to remedy the devastating impact of monoculture. I used YouTube for the majority of the information. Some of the videos used for research included, but were not limited to:
- Animal Outlook. (2017). Carton of Cruelty: Behind Big Dairy’s Closed Doors. [Online Video]. 12 May 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxJ3d_hnXXM&ab_channel=AnimalOutlook. [Accessed: 12 May 2020].
- TEDX Talks. (2018). The End of Animal Farming | Jacy Reese Anthis | TEDxUniversityofMississippi. [Online Video]. 15 March 2018. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBmbVphZKYc. [Accessed: 12 May 2020].
- TEDX Talks. (2014). Factory farms, antibiotics and superbugs: Lance Price at TEDxManhattan. [Online Video]. 11 March 2014. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwHapgrF99A&ab_channel=TEDxTalks. [Accessed: 12 May 2020].
- Minute Earth. (2017). Why Farming Is Broken (And Always Has Been). [Online Video]. 28 September 2017. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkMZJrbCRdQ&ab_channel=MinuteEarth. [Accessed: 12 May 2020].
- (2018). Along The Edge | A Montana Family Harvest Story. [Online Video]. 29 April 2018. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JvlGSnYJA0&ab_channel=AgriStudios. [Accessed: 15 May 2020].
- Daniele Cesano. (2019). Joel Salatin – Polyface farm. [Online Video]. 9 January 2019. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVYindYP3w&ab_channel=DanieleCesano. [Accessed: 15 May 2020].
Materials were sourced predominantly from Freesound.org, which has an abundance of free sound effects, and audio to use for podcasts, music creation, film Foley, etc. The entire soundscape is made from edited and sliced pieces of sound effects, without the use of music at all. Some low drone noises were used to create suspense, however these are artificial noises that mirror the engine and factory noises that were also used. Some background sound was sourced from YouTube – specifically from a video of primitive construction methods.
