Media Bodies Wk 4 – Running and Proprioception

 

A synopsis on ‘Coming Home’

This piece is titled ‘Coming Home’ and it focuses on the feelings of coming back to a place you one belonged. Emma hasn’t been home in a long time due to covid travel restrictions in the past few years. Now that Emma is back home, she is overwhelmed with joy as well as misplacement. Two totally separate feelings. She is joyed to be reunited with her parents and to be in her family home, however, as she walks the hallway of her childhood home, Emma feels different. Certain things have changed and been moved, it doesn’t feel as good as she thought, she feels like a stranger.

What did you discover about the experience of running and proprioception?

• The speed of what you run obviously has some dependence on your physical body, however, it also has a lot to do with your mental state.
• After listening to Kathrine Switzer’s first marathon experience, I took note of her motives throughout the race. She endured a number of different thought patterns due to external factors like crowd noises and attacks (a man attacking her and telling her to get out of his race).
• Different mental motivations reflect to physical movement

• ‘Runner 261’, (2020) Andrea Rangecroft, BBC Short Cuts – Series 22, Endurance [Podcast]. Place of distribution: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000fgdk  (Links to an external site.)  (11:22 – 18:50)

 

What worked well about your finished piece? What didn’t work so well?

• What worked well is that I was able to incorporate a few techniques from the videos we watched this week. I focused on colour in the frame as well as individual movement. The main character wears blue denim shorts and a navy blue shirt. The colour blue isn’t necessarily meant to reflect the mood of the character but more so highlight their feeling of being out of place. Nothing else in the frame is blue, the character is made to look isolated. As well, in every shot, the movement of Emma is dominant as nothing else moves from its stationed point, not even her mother.

 

• What I could have included in my work is the use of camera movement, just to bring something different to my piece. This is difficult to execute though, considering that I am in the video works myself. I also think that I could have been more purposeful with my colours by dressing my mum in colours that blended more with the place, e.g greens and yellows, so that my character would stand out even more.

What was one idea from the reading that you found interesting and/or that you might like to explore in your future work?

• In this week’s reading, ‘Playing with fear: Parkour and the mobility of emotions’, written by Stephen Saville, I was left to think about the difference between feeling an embodied experience to observing another person’s experiences. It is a really fine line. The text speaks on the emotion of fear and how it interplays heavily with the risky activity parkour. However, I see parkour as a thrilling and freeing experience, empty of fear and filled with adrenaline. I have watched many parkour videos on youtube and have always been envious of the way their bodies move so swiftly from building to building. When I watch these videos however, I do not feel “free”, rather I feel “envious”. The traceur (a practitioner of parkour) would not be experiencing envy as they free run, meaning that I am not embodying their experience, but I am reacting to it. 

What was one technique you noticed in any of the media examples that worked to heighten the sense of the bodies shown in the space/s?

• It was interesting to learn from the Every Frame a Painting video, ‘Composing Movement’, that a technique used by director Akira Kurosawa in all of his films was the movement of nature. He included some kind of weather in every shot, that being rain, fire, smoke, wind, water or snow. This technique was used to pull emotional triggers and keep visual interest in a shot. It would also highlight a character’s inner emotions.

What did you talk about in class around exploring using space in frame? What techniques have you used in your own media work?

• In class we spoke about the use of negative space in a frame, meaning, space where there is no action or focus.
• It was interesting to discuss the different ways that negative space can be used to enhance or create meaning to a scene.
• Negative space can assist in showing the proportions of something/someone. For example, using a long shot to highlight how small someone is whilst next to a tall mountain. Rather than just using a wide shot with part of the mountain in the frame, a long shot is used to exaggerate the belittled experience that the character is feeling.
• Colour
• Removing clutter from the frame is a great and simple way of highlighting loneliness and isolation

What did you explore or talk about exploring using colour in frame? What techniques have you used in your own media work?

• Colours within the frame can be a reflection of how a character is feeling. 
• The use of colour can help to associate characters to places or vice versa.
• It can be used to highlight status  
• In my work for this week I used colour as a way of pulling focus to the main character and showing how they are slightly out of place. This is important in my work because the character is in the house that she grew up in but things have changed and she feels misplaced.

What was/were the theme/s that your classmates noticed in your work for assignment 1?

• In assignment 1 my classmates could recognise that I had made all of my pieces very differently, they all had different storylines and different characters.

What theme/s did you notice in your own work? Or, if there were none, what are some themes or ideas that you’re interested in exploring in the media collection for Assignment 2?

• I struggled with finding a common theme in my assignment 1 works.
• For assignment 2 I really want to find an aesthetic that is unique to my works. That may be the timing, the types of shots, the music used, audio layering ect.

 

 

Zoe’s Media Bodies A1

For the first three weeks of the course ‘Media Bodies’, I have created three works that are all quite different but all have a focus around paying attention to physical and emotional environments.

For my first media work titled ‘Walking and Noticing’, I zoomed in on the attentiveness of the character on screen. He begins by leaving his house to take a break from his home office. The man is still on a business call and is just walking through free space. His phone call ends and then he begins to take notice of the birds chirping in the trees, the wind gently gliding across his skin and the sweet smells of the flowers nearby. From taking note and being aware of his surroundings, he can find that needed distraction and ease his mind, creating a calming mood.

 

 

My second work was an audio piece titled ‘Inner Talk Distractions’. I highlight in this recording that having awareness in a certain time and space can easily be changed by the simplest of things. We can purposely be aware and unintentionally aware of certain things. In this piece, we hear the character’s inner thoughts as well as the noises in the room she is in. A plane flies over the room and causes her to forget how hot the tea she is drinking is. Her perception of touch is interrupted by the distracting sound of the plane.

 

 

My final piece is a video work that features my dog Ben as the main character, the video is titled ‘Old Dog Balancing’. This piece visually has a good focus on the physical environment that Ben is in, but it shows more of the emotional environment that he experiences. Ben has little to no hearing since he is a 16 year old dog, however when he becomes aware that I am calling out to him and giving hiim extra attention, he has an embodied feeling of excitement that is reflected through his joyful prance and wagging tail. He is outdoors, there are lots of interesting smells, and he has company, all of his favourite things.

 

 

Reflection

I found that by working with two different mediums, video and audio work, in the last three weeks, I have been able to explore the body senses in a number of ways. Firstly, by creating video works I have highlighted the importance of the partnership between sound and sight. In order to create a quality visual piece, you must consider your audio as it heavily assists and guides what audiences see. This does not mean all video works must have audio, it just means that you need to consider what the purpose of absent audio is, what effect does it have on the audience? Creating an audio work allowed me to realise how important it is to be descriptive in order to highlight the bodily experience being portrayed in the work. It also taught me that being descriptive does not have to be through dialogue, it can also be through sound.

 

From watching a number of interesting media examples during class, I was able to recognise a few techniques used to highlight the bodily experiences being portrayed by certain characters. Week one’s media example of Peter Middleton and James Spinney feature film ‘Notes on Blindness’ approached many useful techniques that helped viewers notice the embodiment of the main character. One example is that in a few shots throughout the film, the lighting would be dimmed to the point that it is hard to make out what is visually happening in the scene. This technique was used as a point of view take of the main character. It wasn’t a point of view of what he could see, but more so what his vision quality is like. Another media example that stood out to me was Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein’s short animation ‘Balance’. Through using disturbing sound effects of loud echoed creaks and distant bangs, the directors were able to create a sense of fear in the audience. Viewers feel the fear of the characters in the animation, they do not want to lose balance, otherwise they fall to their death.

 

I have taken note of some things that have worked well and not so well in all of my works. Something that stood out to me as working well is my ability to understand the importance of audio layering. As I have mentioned, the partnership between what you can see and what you can hear is something to take care of in media work. I know that you have to really make sure that your audio and visual work well together, but they also have to work well apart. Something I struggled with was using the knowledge I have in this area and applying it to my work. Throughout the three weeks of work I have been fascinated and focused on the audio and visual partnership, but I feel as though my work does not reflect that. With more practice and experience I hope that I can further develop my skills and find ways to create more complex pieces of work.

Throughout all of my media works, a point of similarity is the use of an atmospheric soundtrack. Even though my media works have music and sound effects embedded in them, throughout the entirety of the pieces I have included live recorded sounds of the physical environment that the work is set in. However, just because they all use atmospheric soundtracks, does not make them work as a collective, especially since the soundtracks are used at different volumes and temperaments for each piece. After viewing my pieces again, one after another, it is difficult to group them as a collective. They all have totally different story lines, they involve very different characters, different moods and different paces.

An approach that I used in my works to notice the feeling of the lived bodily experiences was through the use of background music. I did question if it would be appropriate to add non-diegetic music when trying to showcase a bodily experience, but it became clear that with the right music, it can help evoke audience connection. If my pieces were to be viewed in a gallery, work one and three would share the link of overlaid music. Both have an absence of dialogue which means that the music can further display the characters’ bodily experiences.

 

The readings from weeks one to three have offered insight and ideas to what embodiment is and ways we can portray someone’s sense of physical and emotional environment as one through media. Laura Ellingson’s reading ‘Embodied knowledge’ (2012, p.2) shares the idea that by incorporating ‘thick descriptions of bodily experience in mainstream research reports’, we are able to creatively express bodily experiences. This stood out to me because I am always questioning whether someone would understand the work/s I am making and how the character/s within my work/s are experiencing the events that are happening. Week two’s reading, ‘Foggy Notion: sound and weather, and the intermingled senses’, quoted that ‘John M. Hull, in his diary on blindness, talks of sound as that which can illuminate a space.’ (Allan, 2019, p.64). This highlighted that by losing a sense, we are still able to find a way to depict what we have lost. In media works, we should reflect upon our own senses and how we would interact with a media work with the absence of a sense. An idea that I took note of purely because it interested me was from Betty Block and Judith Lee Kissell’s text ‘The Dance: Essence of Embodiment’. The idea that the authors presented was that ‘we often fail to value the decisions our body makes’(Block & Kissell, 2001, p.6). They are zooming in on the fact that people will typically react to certain things in a culturally and socially acceptable way, rather than how their body wants to react. It makes me question what a true embodied experience would feel like.

 

Ultimately, my ideas about embodiment in media work have developed over the past three weeks, however there is of course more to learn. The short length media works have been a great start in strengthening my understanding of how to reflect a sense of embodiment. The use of different camera angles, certain sounds and colour grading all play a part amongst many other things. I hope to continue to focus on these important areas of media making.

Links to Blog Posts:

Media Bodies Wk1 – Walking and Sight

Media Bodies Wk2 – Standing and Hearing

Media Bodies Wk3 – Balancing and Dancing

 

Reference List:

 

Allan, J. L. (2019). Foggy notion: Sound and weather, and the intermingled senses. SoundEffects – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience, 8(1), 51–67.

‘Balance’ (1989) Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein. Material-Verlag [Short film] Place of distribution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PADVHR-_wOs

Block, B. and Kissell, JL (2001) ‘The dance: Essence of embodiment’, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 22(1), pp. 5–15.

Ellingson, L. L. (2012). Embodied knowledge. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (p. 245).

‘Notes on Blindness’, (2016) Peter Middleton and James Spinney. [Feature film]. [42:00-44:50] Place of distribution: https://rmit.kanopy.com/video/notes-blindness-0

 

 

Media Bodies Wk3 – Balancing and Dancing

 

A synopsis of Old Dog Balancing

• In this work, the purpose is to highlight the balance a 16 year old dog has on different surfaces and the ways he moves in reaction to his environment.
• Close up shots of Ben, the 16 year old dog, helps focus in on the way he is standing on the different surfaces, more so how he is finding his balance on the surface.
• A mix of establishing shots and mid shots are used for a purpose as well. Whenever Ben runs around in excitement, it is because he has space to do so, for example, running around the yard. Some other shots are mid-close up shots and they highlight the restriction of freedom and therefore there is less excitement from Ben.

What did you discover about trying to evoke a physical environment and/or emotional environment using particular types of shots and the sounds you recorded for your soundtrack? What did the different media modes (vision or sound) allow you to do?

• I discovered in this media work that you must focus heavily on what your surroundings are and how they are influencing the art that you are creating. I struggled with using recorded sounds in my piece so instead I used music to help enhance the emotional environment. The music definitely helped but it wasn’t able to convey an authentic feel of the physical environment. 

What worked well in your finished piece? What didn’t work quite so well? Why do you think this is?

• Something that worked well in this piece was that I was able to capture lots of different angles and have Ben standing/walking on different surfaces. This weeks class activity of balancing on different surfaces influenced this part of my work. I found it interesting that simply standing on one leg on concrete vs doing it on a grass surface changes the way your body balances. I wanted to further this activity with a four legged friend and see if it is a similar experience to mine.
• Something that didn’t work well was that I struggled to create a natural soundscape that linked to the environment that Ben was surrounded by. This did come from being in different locations as well as the whole piece being made up of short still shots. I managed to overlay a musical soundtrack that helped reflect the emotional environment of the piece, however I think with more practice I could make it smoother.

What is one idea from the reading that you think could be useful to the studio’s exploration of how to make media that evokes a stronger feeling of living in the body/ies shown in the media work? How did you use this idea in your own work?

• An idea from the reading we discussed in class is how body language is a strong form of communication and helps us to understand how someone is feeling without them having to form words. As simple as that sounds, Block and Kissell’s text ‘The dance: Essence of Embodiment’ exclaims that ‘we often fail to value the decisions our body makes’. They are zooming in on the fact that people will typically react to certain things in a cultural and socially acceptable way, rather than how their body want to react.
• This can cause people to question how they truely feel in certain situations and can cause a corrupt feeling to ones sense of embodiment.
• A way that media can evoke a stronger feeling of living in bodies within different works is allowing characters to express themselves through body movement. It was in some ways easy for me to do this in this weeks media work because I had my dog as my main character, and the main way he expresses himself in through physical movement (he can not speak unfortunately). When he is excited, he skips around, when he is happy, his tail wags, if he is worried, his movement is hesitant.

What ideas did this week’s media examples give you about what ‘balance’ is, and/or how it plays into the experience of dancing (or other similar activity)? How did you use these ideas in your own work?

‘Figure 5 – Marcelino Sambé’ (2021) Bertil Nilsson [Video] Place distributed: https://vimeo.com/577131833

 (Links to an external site.) 

• After watching Bertil Nilsson’s video ‘Figure 5 – Marcelino Sambé’, I could recognise a focus between the relationship of having control and being vulnerable. This was highlighted through Sambé’s dance life. He explains how dance allows him to express himself and feel most free. The style of dance that he performs is ballet, which is a style typically known for its structure and control. It is interesting that he find so much freedom and expression through this style of dance, but this could possibly be because of the steady balance that comes through each movement.

 

Media Bodies Wk2 – Standing and Hearing

A synopsis that describes what the piece is attempting to do

• In this audio work titled ‘Inner talk distractions’, the girl stresses about getting her university assignment in on time, she has left it to the last minute. She tries to piece together a plan to get her assignment completed on top of her long day of work.
• She is on a break in the empty staff room at her workplace, making a cup of tea as she thinks about how she will finish the assignment on time.
• When a plane flies over the building she loses her train of thought, even burning her hand on the tea cup.
• The girl’s perception of sounds and the spatial awareness are affected when the plane flies over.

Some notes about what you discovered about the relationship between sound, physical space, and movement

• Sound, in a way, should be seen as something physical. We say we can see wind, but I always question whether or not we actually can. This week’s discussions reminded me of a clip I watched a few years ago. It was a live video of a volcano erupting, and rippling out of it was the massive sound wave. You could see the sound – Volcano Eruption in Papua New Guinea
• From watching the clip in the film ‘Notes on Blindness’, it was made clear that sound is a great guide in becoming spatially aware in the space you are in. 
• You are able to tell if something is hollow by knocking it and hearing the empty noise it makes.

Some notes about what worked well and what didn’t work quite so well

What worked well: 

• I was able to collect authentic sounds from my kitchen that helped create the space in my audio work.
• I decided to use one sound throughout the entire audio work. This was the sound of my refrigerator. As I stood still in my kitchen, that was the most dominant sound that I could hear. I noticed in my work that this sound was not dominant and in fact it got lost. However, I do view this as a positive thing because it has shown how we take notice of different sounds and how a change of environment causes our minds to focus on other things, sounds, colours ect.

 What didn’t work well: 

• I think that I could have added more emotion to this piece, possibly by having a deeper storyline for the character.
• I didn’t quite hit the mark on including weather considerations, another section that could have been explored deeper.

One idea from the reading, a brief explanation of your understanding of that idea, and of how you think it could be useful or interesting in your media making work. How did you try to explore that idea in the media work you made this week? (Or how might you do so in future work?)

• “John M. Hull, in his diary on blindness, talks of sound as that which can illuminate a space.”
• I find this so fascinating. The thought of becoming blind is extremely scary and I would not wish it upon anyone, however, it is amazing how the body and mind work. I’ve always known that if you lose a sense, sight, hearing, taste ect, your other senses become heightened, but Hull’s description of what sound does for him as a blind person is incredible. Sound creates an image of the space he is in. Anyone could close their eyes and tap on items in a room to mentally visualise the space, but it will never be the same in comparison to someone who actually has no sight.
• To bring this point to my media and future work, it is so important to consider all aspects of developing content. What I mean is, if I am creating a film, I need to make sure that the sound and audio is considered equally with the visual aspect of the film. They are just as important as one another.

One technique you noticed in any of the media examples from this week, and how you felt they heightened the sense of hearing or the experience of standing for you. How did you try to make use of that technique (or another one) in the media work you made this week? (Or how might you do so in future work?)

•  A technique that we discussed after listening to ‘Scott, Stethoscope’, was the audio levels, figure, ground and field. 
• I noticed in the podcast that when Scott the stethoscope spoke about the feelings that he heard from a patient’s heart, music began to play in the background. That music would be known as field sound in the audio work. 
• It is important in any media work that involves audio, that you consider the layers of audio in the piece.
• For example, in my audio work for this week, I made sure to include a long audio sound of the noises in my kitchen, so the buzzing of my fridge and distant air coming from an open window. These are my field sounds. Then I had my ground sounds, the water going into the kettle, the character pouring the water into a tea cup ect. Lastly, to complete the layers, we need a figure sound. The figure sound in my work came from the V/O of the character’s inner thoughts.
• When you stand and listen, you will hear things that you may never notice if you are walking or talking because your mind and concentration is elsewhere. So, in media work it is important to take care in your audio because audiences will most likely have heightened concentration in what they are viewing/listening to. 

‘Scott, Stethoscope’ (2019) Everything Is Alive. [Podcast] Place of distribution: https://www.everythingisalive.com/episodes/scott-stethoscope

 

Write about how you found the listening exercise (where you were listening to the Texture Sounds and BBC SFX exercise bicycle recordings). Did you find it easier to try to name the objects whose sounds you were hearing, or to describe the sounds themselves? Why do you think that is?

• This is a tough question to answer. I’m really not sure which one I found easier to describe.
• Part of me found it easier to imagine the objects that made the sounds because I focused on creating a vision in my head. When I did this, I was very focused on the listening task.
• Another part of me found it easier to describe the sounds because I was able to be more accurate. In the first audio piece, everyone in the class had different guesses of what we were listening to, whereas in the second audio piece, everyone had similar answers and reactions.
• Ultimately, describing the sounds is probably easier because it reflects how the sounds make you feel and that can be more important when listening to media work.

 

Media Bodies Wk1 – Walking and Sight

These are some notes on the work that was conducted throughout week 1 of Media Bodies!

The Sound of Colour: Indigo

As I started to listen to Jay-Dea Lopez’s audio work, ‘The sound of colour: Indigo’, I struggled to get a sense of what the colour indigo sounded like. I tried too hard to make sense of what the VoiceOver was describing to me. I had a pen in hand and tried to highlight key words that I heard.

As soon as the VoiceOver started actually describing the colour as being ‘super natural’ and ‘a mystical number’, I was able to immediately start visualising something other than just the colour of indigo.

I closed my eyes and dropped the pen. I could start seeing indigo aliens and planets, along with robot birds that chirped in the sky. The visual in my head was heightened by the repetitive sound effects that played in the background of the audio work.

A light buzzing sound layered with a fluttering noise of beeps that could be mistaken by birds chirping and an occasional slowed down zap sound that reminded me of an imagined space gun.

If am to be honest, without closing my eyes, I felt lost as to how this audio work could link to the colour of Indigo. However, once I closed my eyes and opened my mind to what was being described, I could depict a clear image in my head of a place that filled itself with INDIGO.

Finding a sense of embodiment through guided meditation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inpok4MKVLM – 5-Minute Meditation You Can Do Anywhere

The first thing that came to mind when thinking of the question about ‘the sense of embodiment’ was guided meditation podcasts.

On a general scale, guided meditation will be an audio work that is layered with calm and steady music that includes sounds like a harp or a soft flute, as well as including sounds of nature (birds, water falls ect). On top of that, a person with an extremely smooth and soft voice will guide you into a peaceful and present state of mind.

The reason why I think this media work helps a lot of people to relax is because on top of all the typical calming factors of what we physically hear, we are actually given clear and straight forward instructions of what we should be doing or focusing on. Most guided meditations will be so clear with instructions that the brain does not even need to think twice about what you are doing.

Ellingson’s Embodied Knowledge

With the readings this week, Ellingson’s ‘Embodied knowledge’ text really captured my intention. I am fascinated with how the mind, well brain, and body work as one, especially without being aware of what or how you learnt to work in that way. For example, if I was blindfolded, I would be able to walk from my house that I have lived in my whole life, all the way to the train station (10 minute walk away) because I have made that trip thousands of times and my body knows the way to go.

It was also at the end of Ellingson’s text that I was reminded of the overall wellness of “subjectivity” and how it helps to ‘generate embodied knowledge’. We are typically told to not rely on others subjective information, however, in some situations, if you take care in acknowledging the position of which the research was gathered, it may be a better way of incorporating information, more so in a long term way. 

‘matters deeply in knowledge formation’

Plan for my piece of work; week 1 exercise

I planned to make a piece of work that could display the way in which weather and light effect our moods.

I know from moments during lockdown that I would feel tired and drowsy from being inside all day and then would go for a walk outside and feel a new sense of energy. If the sun was shining then I would feel even more uplifted. This is what I wanted to portray through my piece.

From the media example ‘Notes on Blindness’, I noticed that parts of the film were quite dark, almost to the point where I couldn’t see what was actually happening. However, although I could not see, I still knew what was happening in the scene with the use of heightened sound effects and atmospheric sounds. This use of heightened sound is something that I tried to put some focus into my piece.

Overall, I could have added more detail to my piece that would have linked deeper to ideas discussed in this weeks learnings. My work to me was influenced by my personal experiences and the ‘colour walk’ activity that we did this week… mindful walking.

Synopsis and detail

My week 1 exercise, ‘walking and sight’, explores the idea of noticing, and the way that our moods can change from being aware. Completing an everyday task of walking from one place to another will always have some significance to us whether we notice it or not.

The man leaves his home which is also his work place. He is in need of a break from the desk that he sits at hourly, day by day, week by week. However, leaving his house, moving from one place to another, does not seem to give him an opportunity to break. He is still on a business call and is just letting his body direct him on his local streets.

It is only once he is able to end that draining call that his mind joins his body’s journey. He notices the relaxing swooshes of wind and the beautiful calming aromas that surround him from the plants in sight.

The sunglasses he wears are a symbol of his awareness being blocked. When the glasses are removed, vibrant colour can be seen and he is able to finally relax. He starts his walk, stressed, tired, and unhappy, he ends his walk, rejuvenated, uplifted and relaxed. He has natural light in his eyes and a nice breeze on his skin.

Enjoy! xxx