Signal Project Reflection
The final project of our Specific to Site studio class was based on the theme ‘Obsession’.
Ever since I can remember I have been infatuated and mesmerized by the element of water. There is just something so divine and magical in it’s entire make up. The way it feels, looks, sounds, and even tastes. I love everything about it.
When I was a baby, I needed the sound of water in order to fall asleep. Every night I would cry hysterically when my parents placed me into my cot. The only way they could stop my tears and get me to fall asleep was by letting me hear the sound of water. So instead of having to leave the bathroom tap running each night, my mum bought me a tape that played the sounds of the rain forest. The sound of the heavy rain and the rushing waterfalls were my lullaby. So my obsession with water existed at a time before I even knew my own name. And it has always been there to save me.
Even just before, as I walked down the beach and watched the little wind chopped waves crash onto the sandy shore, letting the foamy white wash rise up and kiss my ankles, I felt such a flood of relief. Lately it has been feeling like my whole world is coming crashing down, and once again the ocean reminded me that everythings going to be okay.
I feel as though I can trust the sea with my life. It has such a powerful yet gentle manner. The way it has been here long before any of us and the way it will be here long after we are all gone. The ocean just puts things into perspective. The happiest I am in the whole world is when I get to swim down to the ocean floor and just lie there. Staring up through blurry eyes to the rays of sunshine that come piercing and dancing through.
For my project I really yearned to try and capture moments like this and share them with others. Allow them to experience the things in life that I find so captivating and meaningful. I guess the only problem is I’m not too great at being able to make and generate the type of media that would be a true reflection of how speical water and the ocean are to me.
To create my piece for the project I used a GoPro hero3. It was really the only way to capture what I was attempting to express.
I am constantly inspired by the things people are able to capture with their Gopro’s, especially Surfer’s. I find their footage utterly mesmerising and magical. To surf is to be at one with the element of water. I think that to be able to dance and to play with a moving mountain of water, a natural and uncontrollable force, is something so beautiful.
When these Professional Surfers film themselves being barrelled or doing ridiculous turns, they invite everyday people to witness a bit of the magic that they themselves are able to experience in full sensation. Like in Dan Mace’s 2014 surf film ‘Lost For Words’ surfer Benji Brand used his Gopro to capture some of the longest barrels ever recorded. He exasperated that “this day everything was perfect, the barrels were so long, I mean, I can’t even explain it in words”. Being able to film these waves allows the viewer to see something that they otherwise never would have in their whole lives.
In his dark and captivating novel ‘Breath’ (2008) Tim Winton’s main protagonist, Bruce Pike, becomes completey obsessed with the exhiliration of surfing and the mystique of the underwater world. When looking back upon the first big and incredible wave he caught, Winton’s character Bruce maintains that “I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and every revelation against those few seconds of living.” It’s pretty beautiful that a natural, flowing, and rushing body of water has the power to create experiences and feelings that are so profound.
These helped to inspire the creation of a visual and audio piece that takes the viewer out of there usual habitat and immerses them in an underwater world. Leting them experience the places and the moments that are so meaningful and beautiful to me.
The first and third visual sequences I created were filmed at Gunnamatta Ocean Beach, where the ocean and waves are notorious for being powerful and dangerous. As a child I was addicted to playing in the big and heavy shorebreak waves. I wasn’t as brave as my brothers though, who actually loved the feeling of being dumped and thrown around by the energy of the ocean. I think it made them feel awake and alive. So these visual sequences were inspired by memories, as was the audio, which happened to be extracted from the footage. I attempted to film and subsequently edit the foamy and glistening shorebreak waves in a beautiful and hypnotising manner. Creating this sequence completely took me back to my childhood, a time where I was constantly mesmerised by the rush of the incoming waves and the chance to feel the thrill of riding one.
My second and fourth sequences were created as a way of sharing my love of being deep under water. Whether it be floating at the bottom of a pool, or swimming like a mermaid through the dark and mystical rockpools at home, my aim was to capture the way water can let you escape to another world, a place where you can be completely at peace. And so long as at the end of it all you can rush to the surface and gasp into the air for oxygen, in those few moments of being totally immersed and entirely free, nothing else really matters.
Lost 4 Words. (2014). [film] Namibia: Dan Mace.
Winton, T. (2008). Breath. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.